Ask HN: Hackers Guide to the Stockmarket?

13 points by pw7 14 years ago | 11 comments

I know nothing about the stockmarket. I know. Thats sad. But whenever I asked a suit to explain it to me, I've fallen into a coma. I am curious however, and willing to develop a solid mental model. So I was wondering if there is something out there which can be considered a hacker's guide to the stockmarket?

tom_b 14 years ago |

I recently picked up:

The Smartest Investment Book You'll Ever Read: The Proven Way to Beat the "Pros" and Take Control of Your Financial Future by Daniel Solin. A good basic starter book and very short.

For a larger (and timely) economic view, I also slogged through This Time is Different by Reinhart and Rogoff. This book kind of looks at macro-economic conditions around recessions in history to abstract out a pattern around recessions, currency collapses, and depressions. It is not about the stockmarket in a very specific way.

Neither of these sources are particularly hacker-centric viewpoints of the market. Are you looking for algorithmic trading stuff? You might want to check out http://quant.ly/

pw7 14 years ago | |

Thanks I think I'm gonna buy that book. I am not looking for algorithmic trading stuff (yet). As I said, I barely know anything about the stock market, main thing is want the resources to be brief and straight to the point. Regards.

paperwork 14 years ago |

Frankly, the best way to learn about the stock market is to buy and sell a few stocks. This is the fastest way to gain the greatest amount of knowledge. If you can't afford it, do it on a 'play' account. Give yourself a budget of x dollars and y days. Try to make the most amount of money (or, if you are on a dummy account, try to lose as much money as possible).

antonioe 14 years ago |

Khan Academy has a bunch of things on markets which I think is pretty digestible for people - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKly7Y1woJs

Etrade has a bunch of videos on the stock market lingo but I think you need an account.

ashika 14 years ago | |

Seconded. I'd suggest just browsing around http://www.khanacademy.org/#finance and click on any links that seem interesting. Each video is quite accessible on its own.

If, however, OP's interest in learning about the market goes further than the academic, then the motley fool (www.fool.com) website has a decent amount of basic info geared towards individual investors, e.g. http://www.fool.com/investing/beginning/investing-strategies...

pw7 14 years ago | |

Awesome, I like Khan Academy. Did not realize they had finance videos though. Thanks

AHorihuela 14 years ago |

I'd start out with Investopedia (http://www.investopedia.com/university). That will give you a good overview and teach you the key terms which often make other investing books confusing.

cellularmitosis 14 years ago |

This is definitely worth 15 minutes of your time. http://philip.greenspun.com/materialism/money

tl;dr if you don't know where to start, start with an index fund.

Juha 14 years ago |

I have the same feeling. I am also interested to get bit deeper knowledge of stock market. I find that the books written by financial experts can be a bit though read for someone not used to all the financial terminology.

whichdan 14 years ago |

You could try a virtual stock exchange game - http://vse.marketwatch.com/Game/Homepage.aspx

ig1 14 years ago |

Read this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Intelligent_Investor