If you pull up any of the Yahoo Finance stock message boards, 90% of the posts there are either speculators trying to convince others to buy the stock at higher and higher prices - for their own personal profit, or short sellers trying to strike fear in the buyers - again for their own personal profit.
On the other hand, an investment adviser who is paid based on your portfolio value has a much higher incentive to make you rich (your success is his success).
There are both trusthworthy people and scammers out there. Identify their true motivation in helping you, and you're able to identify whether it is a valuable source of information.
It is easy to gamble in the stock market, but I can't think of any way to guide the money from one certain person to the pocket of another certain person.
Stocks are sold to anyone in the world on the open market.
If you buy stock hoping that you can sell it for a quick profit because of the weekly or monthly swings in price, then you are not investing. You are trying to guess better than the public (including the professionals) how the price will change.
This is gambling instead of investing.
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To truly invest, you would buy stocks in companies that are secure and earning money, and then hold on to them. When you hold these stocks over a period of time, the prices will go up for a real reason; the companies are earning money every year and becoming more valuable. This is not gambling; you are owner of a money making business. It takes time for that business to earn money.
If you save a portion of your income each payday and as it accumulates invest in stocks, over the course of several years you can grow very wealthy indeed. It is like hiring someone to get a job and earn money for you, and then using that money to hire more workers. Your money grows exponentially.
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You are going to rip me off. I know nothing about stocks, investing, wall street, none of it, and you tell me it's easy. You help me out in my investments, you make me think I'm going to be making a whole lot of money. Instead, i lose every penny, and you profit off my loss. Would someone who actually knows about this stuff explain to me how this would work and what would you say to convince me that you have my best interest in mind while you take my money out of my pocket?
This all started from a conversation a co-worker and i were having and i don't know enough to really understand the details.
