Stocks Class: How to Get Started at Stock Picking

Are you one of those folks who read Jim Cramer's January piece in GQ contending that individual investors should be in stocks, not mutual funds? You're convinced, but now the question is: How do I get started?

If you're a stock beginner who wants to make steady progress over the long run and just needs some help getting going, read on. I'm not offering some kind of quick-fix, hot-tip, top-10 pulp here. Think of it as a basic set of carpentry tools and a simple blueprint that that should help you acquire the skills you'll need to build a portfolio. Best of all, the techniques I'll give you are usually free and totally accessible to anyone with an Internet hook-up and a good public library. That said, let's dig in.

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