How does an eager young investor get business ideas?

Find a need and fill it.

By asking that question over and over again to as many different people as he/she can.

Read every business periodical you can - Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Business Week, US News and World Report are a few that come to mind. Read the online columns of the financial gurus, too. You can find some at http://finance.yahoo.com/.

Study accounting, finance, and business in high school or college. Knowing the nuts and bolts that are used to put businesses together and keep them running will help you analyze a business and decide if it's worth investing in.

Pick 5 sample stocks that you think are worthwhile, and pretend to invest $10,000 among them. Track how well they are doing, and see if your "investments" go up or down. Try to figure out why you were right or wrong after several months.


Or....

Put your money into a couple of index funds that cover different markets (small caps, Asia, Europe, the Dow or Russell or S&P 500, for example), and spend all that time you would have spent studying enjoying time with your family, or fishing, or working a 2nd job to get more money to invest. Most fund managers, stock brokers, and private investors too seldom perform better than the stock market average. An index fund tracks that average. You won't do better than the average, but you'll probably do better than most of the pros. And in the last 100 years, the market has gone up by about 9% annually. And that includes the Great Depression.

By asking anyone and everyone you meet and by reading business and entreprenueral magazines.

Advertise in small towns. The people in smaller towns have trouble finding someone like you.