Invest for Dummies

The best-selling "Dummies" series has several books which can teach the novice how to invest in a variety of potentially profitable investment opportunities. They offer step-by-step tools for beginners to learn the basic tools of investing in plain, simple language.

Decide upon a broad field of investing you're interested in learning more about. Real estate remains a relatively secure and popular investment, though stocks and mutual funds offer the lure of potentially higher profit returns. The "Dummies" series offers several strategies to investors interested in a particular area.

Select a title in the "Dummies" series from your local bookstore, secondhand bookshop or online bookseller. The standard tome of reference for the absolute beginner is "Investing for Dummies," available at a reasonable price at almost any of the larger book retailers in your community.

Master the information in the first volume before moving on to specialized versions of the "Dummies" series. Apply it to real-world examples, using fictional capital to make and track your own set of practice investments.

Check out "Stock Investing For Dummies," which will apply the basic information to the world of the stock markets in more precise detail. If you are interested in stock investing, it is strongly recommended that you not proceed to commit your capital before you have attained a confident working knowledge of how to evaluate a stock's potential.

Move on to "Value Investing for Dummies," an even more specific book for stock investors looking to learn "value" methods. In essence, value investing refers to the practice of attempting to acquire under-priced stocks in solid companies instead of jumping on board with solid stocks valued at or near where fundamental analysis says they ought to be.

Invest in a copy of "Real Estate Investing for Dummies," a book which will illustrate a wide variety of tried and true methods for making money in the relatively safe, lucrative real estate market. This title makes a good choice for investors looking to learn about sensible, long-term investing opportunities.

Apply the lessons you've learned in the books yourself, once you have put in the time to develop a thorough understanding of the techniques they contain. When investing, remember that it's always a smart practice to have a diversified investment portfolio that includes both short- and long-term investments.