There are many ways to approach the stock market, the correct term should be financial markets. Most of the comments here are focusing on fundamental investing which has a very longterm view.......benjamin graham's book is a good starting point here. Since this is hacker news, i would recommend you focus on ignoring fundamental data and focus purely on statistical analyses, thereby using price, volume, econometrics on price data and probability theory to extract profits from the markets. Research what firms like renaissance technologies, d.e. shaw ect are doing. Edward thorpe also has some good some stuff, especially his stuff on blackjack. I would recommend reading some stuff on richard dennis, his methods are very trivial by today's standard's but it will make some light bells go off. Also the work of benoit mandelbrot, for me his work has made the biggest impact on me with regards to the way i approach the financial market.<p>Also don't limit yourself to the stock market, you should really look at derivatives across all markets especially exotics, there is so much inneficiency it is not even funny. If i could move money freely around internationally there is so much stuff i can do, but now with the patriot act and, it is hard to move money freely and quickly.