Stocks are difficult and require lots of time. For a serious trader, you should be able to dedicate at least 1/2 a day everyday of the week reviewing your particular investment. You need to understand what the primary function of your stock is, follow current market trends, and you must be able to read a balance sheet, as well as other income statements (i.e. P/L)?
A good website to follow any financial market anytime of the day (b/c money never stops working) surf around on
www.bloomberg.com... Also, a great resource is a dude named Jim Cramer (maybe Crammer) anyway do a yahoo search to find out what time and channel his broadcast is on, in the 206, he's on 1210 am @ noon Mon-Fri
IMO your money is better of in mutual funds (unless you enjoy high risk and have lots of knowledge & time). There is still a risk to mutual funds but if you follow general current market trends it's easier to forecast what corner of the market to move you investments to, that way you are not subject to as much exposure (i.e. as we shift to an "upswing" economy you'd wanna shift from small & med caps more towards large caps like the S&P 500 (the 500 biggest companies on the exchange)...
Anyway, hopefully that provided some insight and pointed you in a direction to learn more about getting that paper.
Your best investment in my opinion is Real Estate, but that's just me...
Back to stocks, I'd like to leave you w/ one piece of advice... NEVER go off someone who has a tip or a hunch (it'll be either insider trading, a big no no & real bad FedTime) or you'll have to know exactly when to get in and when to get out (which is impossible unless you revert back to the prior statement)
Again NEVER go off a tip or a hunch, 99.5 times out of 100 you'll get burnt...