The market finished at a record high today, although not quite at 14,000. It had traded earlier in the day at that level but did not reach that peak before closing. The market is up over 12% for the year and now some analysts are forecasting 15,000 before the end of the year. When you look at the statistics it is a little bit astonishing. The market moved from 13,000 to 14,000 in a mere 57 days. Additionally, the market has closed at a record 57 trading days this year. This is pretty amazing since oil has been marching upwards.Of course there are still people losing money in the market and hedge fund pros getting paid gobs of money to lose money for their clients. I think now is still a good time to get into the market although I'm not about to steer you astray and offer stock tips.
If you are looking to get in the market you can open up a brokerage account by tomorrow and start investing. Fidelity and Charles Schwab are perennial favorites, while brokerages like TradeKing and OptionsXpress don't have minimum account balances or service fees.
Head over to the library or half.com, there are plenty of good investing books that can school you in what a P/E ratio is and teach you how to tell if a stock is overvalued. Or pick up "The Intelligent Investor," the book that Warren Buffet has said is one of the best. After you get your feet on the ground with the basics you can read up on what the pro's are doing. For those of you who have cable (and can stomach his personality) Jim Cramer's Mad Money is a solid show for beginners run by a guy who made a killing by running a hedge fund.
Finally, you can see what the big institutional investors are doing for free by checking out what are the most active options. Head over to Yahoo!Finance and Market Watch which are tremendous resources to get you started.
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Image Credit: Helico