Playing the market; things to know?

As my household income has increased, my wife and I are contemplating entering individual stocks within the stock market. My experience in the stock market is actually pretty long-been in about 10 years so far; however, the experience is in mostly in mutual funds. They've treated us fairly well over the years. I used to look at just P/E ratio to understand stocks but now that I am thinking of getting in more deeply; I would like to understand the other financial information provided. Does anyone have any books to recommend or anything like that.

I have read Buffetology and would not recomend this book as a means of getting usefull information. I am by the way a Buffet fan and read the book before going to a Berkshire Annual meeting, can't wait for the next one only a couple of weeks away.
The Buffet Way is a much better book to read.

I don't know what you mean by getting in more deeply but if you really want to go in deep read "Investment Analysis" by Graham and Dodd this is considered manadatory reading at my firm and is considered the best book for investment analysts. We keep several copies in our office for referance. The 1951 edition is considered the best by most people. It is very heavy reading though. Bengamin Graham by the way was the person who mentored Buffet.

Start off by reading as many articles as you can at
www.investorpedia.com (Great resource of free articles for new investors to experienced traders, also has a great dictionary to look up any kind of investing term)

On the book front I would start off by picking up 3-4 books on how the market and stocks work and fundamental analysis.

I highly recommend "The Disciplined Trader" by Mark Douglas. This is based off a true story of a professional trader that went from bankrupcy to riches again its very good story that teachs the state of mind you should be in when you are investing or trading. You dont have to know much of anything about investing or trading to learn so many lessons from the book.

I hear Buffettology by Mary Buffett, is a excellent book to teach you fundamental analysis. After that I would look into a good online broker after you are confident you have read up and learned enough to start trading.

The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham
Warren Buffett Portfolio by Robert Hagstrom
One Up On Wall Street by Peter Lynch
Technical Analysis of Stock Trends by Robert Edwards, John Magee
How to make money in stocks by William O'neill
The Intelligent Investor" by Benjamin Graham

All the above are highly recommended prior to investing in the market with real money.
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well you can enjoy lower expenses and wilder swings with ETF versions of yoru mutual funds. They operate the same way as Mutuals but you can trade them interday and liek I said they have much wilder swings.

as for books Jim Cramer and Jim Rodgers have put out some good ones recently.

There must be an "Investing for Dummies" or Stock Market for Dummies." I've used other books in this series and it is thorough, so try to find one of these.

If you want to see what the best investors are buying, check out http://www.top10traders.com - this is a free site that lets you create a portfolio of stocks with $100,000 in "play" money. Each day the site ranks the best performing portfolios, so you can see how your picks perform compared to other investors. You can read posts on investing from the best traders, as well as share your own investing ideas. There is a charting feature, so you can see how your portfolio performs compared to the S&P 500. Also, you can create your own "group" so that you can see how you are doing compared to your friends.

Here are this month's best traders:

http://www.top10traders.com/Top10Standin...

Hope this helps.

It's time to hire a Portfolio Manager.