Starter Enterprising Investor
The steps you outlined are fine by themselves. Step 5, seeking criticism can be less helpful than one may think.  See stocktwits.com  There are a lot of opposing opinions all of which can be correct over different time-frames.  Try and quantify your confidence and develop different strategies for different confidence levels. I was never smart enough or patient with follow through to be a successful value investor. It was very frustrating to watch stocks trade sideways for years before the company's intrinsic value was better reflected in the market.  Also, you could make an excellent pick, but a macro change and slump could set you back a year and raise doubts. In my experience portfolio management techniques like asset allocation and dollar-cost-averaging is what made my version of value investing work. Your interest in 10k/10q is something to applaud.  Is there something specific about 10k/10q that you do not understand?  Context is key, these types of reports are more relevant and understandable when compared to competitors in the same sector.   It is good to assess over confidence!  It is also good to diversify your knowledge and the effort put into Securities Analysis 6th edition will help with other books in the field.  I see a bit of myself in your post, and if you are like me, than subsequent readings, and full mastery of the concepts in 'Securities & Analysis 6th ed.'  will lead to over confidence, or a false understanding as there are many factors at play in the market.  So many, that even the most scientific approaches to investing can just as equally be described as an 'art'. I'm not aware of the details of your situation, but in general, for you to fully realize the benefits from applying the principals of value investing shared by Graham and more recently Warren Buffett, you must invest on the level that requires use of the consolidation or equity method of accounting, e.g. > 20% ownership.   Sure, the same principals used by Buffett can work on a smaller scale, but a small scale investor is best served by wealth accumulation, which can take many forms. Not the addition of instant equity via acquisitions to their consolidated financials. Lastly, to test what you have learned about value investing, and order execution, try the inverse.  At least on paper.  Short a stock with low value and a high P/E.  TWTR may be a good example? Learn what it is like to have your resources at stake, and the anguish of market and security volatility. It would be a lot easier to wait it out as a long-term value investor from a beach house in Santa Barbara :)
"I tell you how I started as an investor: read the writings of probably the best investor of the history and become familiarized with it: Warren Buffett. I highly recommend ""The Essays of Warren Buffett"", where he provides a wise insight on how a company generates value, and his investment philosophy. You won't regret it! And also, specially in finance, don't follow the advice from people that you don't know, like me." I was starting at 16 (i'm from Russia). Just don't listen to anyone and work hard with your ideas (doesn't matter good or bad). After 2-3 years you gonna have huge skill set for make fortune. Mark and Bill was at your place and make it like I wrote. Doesn't repeat my mistakes plz. I was going to university and fell on love.... Huge mistakes. Just work hard and believe in your self. If you are an entrepreneur, and you are looking forward to strike on your own ( the very definition of entrepreneur) then I suggest that you don't invest in anything except your business and yourself. You will need all the money you have when you launch your business. There will be times when your revenue won't be able to cover your living costs, and that's when you need your cash. At that point of time, do you really want to have your cash tie up in stock market/property? Some more, instead of diverting your attention to learn how the stock market/property works, focus on your business. You will find that the reward is much, much greater. The annual stock market return is 7% to 15%. But the return from entrepreneurship can be many times higher than that. So make sure you go for the bigger prize, not the smaller gains.  It's only when your business no longer requires your capital then you can try to find other means of investment. Your edit indicates that you may not yet be ready to get heavily involved in investing. I say this because it seems you are not very familiar with foundational finance/investing concepts.  The returns that you are seeing as 'yearly' are just the reported earnings every 12 months, which all public companies must publish. Those 'returns' are not the same as the earnings of individual investors (which will be on the basis of dividends paid by the company [which are often annual, sometimes semi-annual, and sometimes quarterly], and by selling shares purchased previously. Note that over 3 months time, investing in interest-earning investments [like bank deposits] will earn you something like 0.5%. Investing in the stock market will earn you something like 2% (but with generally higher risk than investing in something earning interest). If you expect to earn significant amounts of money in only 3 months, you will not be able to without taking on extreme levels of risk [risk as high as going to a casino].  Safe investing takes time - years. In the short term, the best thing you can do to earn money is by earning more [through a better job, or a second part-time job], or spending less [budget, pay down high interest debt, and spend less than you earn]. I highly recommend you look through this site for more budgeting questions on how to get control of your finances. If you feel that doesn't apply to you, I encourage you to do a lot more research on investing before you send your money somewhere - you could be taking on more risk than you realize, if you are not properly informed. "While you’re new or relatively new to this idea then the fitting idea is to perform a little research and primary get conversant in what’s possible with offshore investment opportunities.  I couldn't agree more. A good way to begin this research would be to do an online search for an investment opportunity called ""Royal Siam Trust.""" No chance. First off, unless the company provides audited financials (and they don't from what I can tell), there is no way I'm tinkering with a bunch of small business owners. Transparency is a substantial part of investing and this actually exempts or excludes these companies, from what I can tell. Avoiding tobacco, etc is fairly standard for a fund claiming ethical investing, though it varies. The hard one on your list is loans.  You might want to check out Islamic mutual funds. Charging interest is against Sharia law.  For example: http://www.saturna.com/amana/index.shtml From their about page: Our Funds favor companies with low price-to-earnings multiples, strong   balance sheets, and proven businesses. They follow a value-oriented   approach consistent with Islamic finance principles. Generally, these   principles require that investors avoid interest and investments in   businesses such as liquor, pornography, gambling, and banks. The Funds   avoid bonds and other conventional fixed-income securities. So, it looks like it's got your list covered.  (Not a recommendation, btw. I know nothing about Amana's performance.) Edit: A little more detail of their philosophy from Amana's growth fund page: Generally, Islamic principles require that investors share in profit   and loss, that they receive no usury or interest, and that they do not   invest in a business that is prohibited by Islamic principles. Some of   the businesses not permitted are liquor, wine, casinos, pornography,   insurance, gambling, pork processing, and interest-based banks or   finance associations. The Growth Fund does not make any investments that pay interest. In   accordance with Islamic principles, the Fund shall not purchase   conventional bonds, debentures, or other interest-paying obligations   of indebtedness. Islamic principles discourage speculation, and the   Fund tends to hold investments for several years. "Don't do it until you have educated yourself enough to know what you are doing. I hope you won't take this personally, but given that you are wandering around asking random strangers on the Internet how to ""get into investing,"" I feel safe in concluding that you are by no means a sophisticated enough investor to be choosing individual investments, nor should you be trusting financial advisors to choose investments for you. Believe me, they do not have your interests at heart. I usually advise people in your position to start by reading one book: A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton Malkiel. Once you've read the book by Malkiel you'll understand that the best strategy for all but the most sophisticated investors is to buy an index fund, which simply purchases a portfolio of ALL available stocks without trying to pick winners and losers. The best index funds are at Vanguard (there is also a Vanguard site for non-US residents). Vanguard is one of the very, very, very few honest players in the business. Unlike almost any other mutual fund, Vanguard is owned by its investors, so it has no profit motive. They never try to pick individual stocks, so they don't have to pay fancy high-priced analysts to pick stocks. If you find it impossible to open a Vanguard account from wherever you're living, find a local brokerage account that will allow you to invest in the US stock market. Many Vanguard mutual funds are available as ETFs which means that you buy and sell them just like any other stock on the US market, which should be easy to do from any reasonably civilized place." Very interesting. I would like to expand beyond just precious metals and stocks, but I am not ready just to jump in just yet (I am a relatively young investor, but have been playing around with stocks for 4 years on and off). The problem I often find is that the stock market is often too overvalued to play Ben Graham type strategy/ PE/B, so I would like to expand my knowledge of investing so I can invest in any market and still find value. After reading Jim Rogers, I was really interested in commodities as an alternative to stocks, but I like to play really conservative (generally). Thank you for your insight. If you don't mind, I would like to add you as a friend, since you seem quite above average in the strategy department. "You could have some of the chaos and create a product for yourself, which is owned fully by you, where nobody would ever be able to fire you or go over your head or oust you or force you to sell.   That's the beauty of bootstrapping.  My essay was not anti-startup and it was not anti-fun-creative-chaos. It was anti-venture capital, anti-pipe dreams, anti-selling-yourself.   My whole blog is pro-building-products because products as assets, which make money -- and the difference between a normal person with a job (even at a startup) and the truly rich is that the rich have assets and the normos just have time.   I aim to be ""truly rich"" and not sell my time. Thus my 3-year journey into products. Thus my blog." I started a company that's in the process of trying to become an SEC approved funding portal as defined by this Act.  That being said, I obviously think it was a good thing overall. It's going to be much easier for companies to raise money. However, I think it's also going to be much more difficult find good investments. There's a chance that it might fuel a bubble similar to the Dotcom bubble in the late 90's/early 00's. That's *if* it takes off. I have some doubts that it will really change the landscape a whole lot. Even though it's now legal, you still don't see startups, hedge funds, etc. soliciting investments. At least I don't.  Some of the relaxing of SOX requirements is interesting, but I don't think that really does anything but just defer the inevitable. There are quite a few private companies that are already SOX compliant simply because if they go public or get purchased by a public company, that can be a big advantage.  The increasing of shareholders of record from 500 to 2,000 is irrelevant really. One shareholder of record can sell portions of their interest to as many people as they want (See: Goldman Sachs and Facebook).  Making equity investments in startups available to regular Joe's is a good thing overall. It allows the possibility that someone making $50k per year to invest in a company that could, in the long run, boost them up a tax bracket or two. The flipside of that is that I still believe most of the US to be financially illiterate. There's a possibility of abuse. The SEC is currently writing rules to try and stem that, but there will still be people who do it. Hopefully it's not too bad.  Lifting the ban on general solicitation is, in general, a good thing. For startups I think this might be advantageous, but won't be used very much. Part of the reason startups choose the investors they do (if they're smart) is for what value that person or people bring to the table besides cash. If I'm a startup and I need some money, I'm giving up a portion of my baby to someone. I want to make sure that person is smart and on the same page with me. I'm not going to settle for just anyone. It's important to remember that even if that person has one share, they still get a vote and a say in how I run my company.  **TL;DR** - Overall I think it's going to be good. It's not going to be quite as radical as most people think. There will be some abuses of the new laws and regs, but that comes with the territory. I am not entirely sold on investing in start-up companies, but I really like the idea of crowdfunding investments. I've been an investor at [LendingClub](https://www.lendingclub.com/) for 10 months now and am quite happy so far. For those of you who don't know, Lending Club is where you can crowdfund consumer loans.  I'm also very interested in [Solar Mosaic](https://solarmosaic.com/). Once their quiet period ends I am planning on investing in solar projects through them. Of course I'll want to see some data related to their risk and returns, but I love the idea of earning a return from funding solar projects.    I think that crowdfunding allows you to invest in areas that are normally off-limits to those of us who aren't rich. At the very least these investments offer a nice source of portfolio diversification. Fantastic question to be asking at the age of 22! A very wise man suggested to me the following with regard to your net income I've purposely not included saving a sum of money for a house deposit, as this is very much cultural and lots of EU countries have a low rate of home ownership. On the education versus entrepreneur question. I don't think these are mutually exclusive. I am a big advocate of education (I have a B.Eng) but have following working in the real world for a number of years have started an IT business in data analytics. My business partner and I saw a gap in the market and have exploited it. I continue to educate myself now in short courses on running business, data analytics and investment. My business partner did things the otherway around, starting the company first, then getting an M.Sc. Other posters have suggested that investing your money personally is a bad idea. I think it is a very good idea to take control of your own destiny and choose how you will invest your money.   I would say similarly that giving your money to someone else who will sometimes lose you money and will charge you for the privilege is a bad idea. Also putting your money in a box under your bed or in the bank and receive interest that is less than inflation are bad ideas. You need to choose where to invest your money otherwise you will gain no advantage from the savings and inflation will erode your buying power. I would suggest that you educate yourself in the investment options that are available to you and those that suit you personality and life circumstances. Here are some notes on learning about stock market trading/investing if you choose to take that direction along with some books for self learning. We don't have a good answer for how to start investing in poland.  We do have good answers for the more general case, which should also work in Poland.  E.g. Best way to start investing, for a young person just starting their career? This answer provides a checklist of things to do.  Let's see how you're doing:   Match on work pension plan. You don't mention this.  May not apply in Poland, but ask around in case it does.  Given your income, you should be doing this if it's available.   Emergency savings. You have plenty.  Either six months of spending or six months of income.  Make sure that you maintain this.  Don't let us talk you into putting all your money in better long term investments.   High interest debt. You don't have any.  Keep up the good work.   Avoid PMI on mortgage. As I understand it, you don't have a mortgage.  If you did, you should probably pay it off.  Not sure if PMI is an issue in Poland.   Roth IRA. Not sure if this is an issue in Poland.  A personal retirement account in the US.   Additional 401k. A reminder to max out whatever your work pension plan allows.  The name here is specific to the United States.  You should be doing this in whatever form is available.   After that, I disagree with the options.  I also disagree with the order a bit, but the basic idea is sound:  one time opportunities; emergency savings; eliminate debt; maximize retirement savings.  Check with a tax accountant so as not to make easily avoidable tax mistakes.   You can use some of the additional money for things like real estate or a business.  Try to keep under 20% for each.  But if you don't want to worry about that kind of stuff, it's not that important.  There's a certain amount of effort to maintain either of those options.  If you don't want to put in the effort to do that, it makes sense not to do this.   If you have additional money split the bulk of it between stock and bond index funds.  You want to maintain a mix between about 70/30 and 75/25 stocks to bonds.  The index funds should be based on broad indexes.  They probably should be European wide for the most part, although for stocks you might put 10% or so in a Polish fund and another 15% in a true international fund.   Think over your retirement plans.  Where do you want to live?  In your current apartment?  In a different apartment in the same city?  In one of the places where you inherited property?  Somewhere else entirely?  Also, do you like to vacation in that same place?   Consider buying a place in the appropriate location now (or keeping the one you have if it's one of the inherited properties).  You can always rent it out until then.  Many realtors are willing to handle the details for you.   If the place that you want to retire also works for vacations, consider short term rentals of a place that you buy.  Then you can reserve your vacation times while having rentals pay for maintenance the rest of the year.   As to the stuff that you have now:   Look that over and see if you want any of it.  You also might check if there are any other family members that might be interested.  E.g. cousins, aunts, uncles, etc.  If not, you can probably sell it to a professional company that handles estate sales.  Make sure that they clear out any junk along with the valuable stuff.   Consider keeping furniture for now.  Sometimes it can help sell a property.   You might check if you want to drive either of them.  If not, the same applies, check family first.  Otherwise, someone will buy them, perhaps on consignment (they sell for a commission rather than buying and reselling).   There's no hurry to sell these.  Think over whether you might want them.   Consider if they hold any sentimental value to you or someone else.  If not, sell them.  If there's any difficulty finding a buyer, consider renting them out.  You can also rent them out if you want time to make a decision.  Don't leave them empty too long.  There's maintenance that may need done, e.g. heat to keep water from freezing in the pipes.   That's easy, just invest that.   I wouldn't get in too much of a hurry to donate to charity.  You can always do that later.  And try to donate anonymously if you can.  Donating often leads to spam, where they try to get you to donate more. "Before anything else, read up on the basics of economics. After that, there a few things you need to ask yourself before you even think about investing in anything: If you have an answer to those questions: Once you answered those questions I could make a simple first suggestion: Confident in handling it yourself and low maintenance with uncertain horizon: look up an online bank that offers ETFs such as IWDA (accumulation (dividend is not payed but reinvested) or income(dividend is payed out)) and maybe a few more specific ones then buy and hold for at least 5 years. Confident and high maintenance with long horizon: maybe stock picking but you'll probably never be able to beat the market unless you invest 10's of hours in research per week. However this will also cost a bit and given your initial amount not advisable to do. Be sure that you also have a VERY close look at the prospectus of an investment (especially if you go with a (retail) bank and they ""recommend"" you certain actively traded funds). They tend to charge you quite a bit (yearly management fees of 2-3% (which is A LOT if you are eying maybe 7%-8% yearly) aren't unheard of). ETF's such IWDA only have for example a yearly cost of 0.20%. Personally I have one portfolio (of many) only consisting of that ETF (so IWDA) and one global small cap. It's one of the best and most consistant ones to date. In the end, the amount you start with doesn't really matter so much as long as it's enough to buy at least a few shares of what you have in mind. If you can then increase your portfolio over time and keep the expenses in check, compounding interest should do the rest."