Investing is very easy, but you need to put in time and effort.
You need to understand what the company is doing, the management
team, what its future strategies might be, and read current news
and relate how the strategies is in alignment with the market
trends. Example, if the company during its annual reports stated
that it's going into the cd/vcd market over the next 5 yrs and
recent research shows that youngsters nowadays prefer to download
music from the net, then you know the company is likely to face
plenty of risk ahead. You need to do alot of research, and relate
the information to if the business is going to be more profitable
in the future. You need to have an exit strategy, meaning, you need
to know what should be the actual value of the stock, at what price
you will sell it. For example, if the value of the stock is $1, but
the market price is $0.30, you should buy and wait until it gets to
$1 then sell. But if the market price is $1.10, then the price is
more than what the stock should be valued at, so dun buy. To put in
layman term means, if you go into a furniture shop and see Chair A
and Chair B, chair A cost $1, chair B cost $2, that's their price.
If chair A can last you only 1 year, but chair B last 5 years,
chair B has better value than Chair A. People who only see the
price and not the value tend to buy liabilities. People who know
how to spot value in some things, will be able to buy assets.
That's why the cheapest may not be the best.
Even if you don't know anything about investing, I still suggest
you just anyhow pick a few stocks from different industries, sort
of like diversification to reduce your risk. Since stock market
grow about 10% annually, over the long run, you will still earn
more money than the puny 1% banks pay for your savings. Investment
is for really long term, 2yrs to >20yrs, but overall i would
suggest put the money in and forget about it. When I first started,
I invest and then everyday check the stock market prices, really
dumb of me.
Banks take your money, give you 1% interest, then they invest in
other things, even if they earn 6% from your money, think about it,
using your money and paying you 1% but they keep 5%, you dulan or
not. Somemore nowadays credit card is 24% interests rite? 
