Newbie Question

Q: I am thinking about seriously getting into investing in stocks, but from what I've seen, the market is more than hard to predict, I have a silly question. Can a seasoned investor predict (to some extent) what a stock might to do, or is the market totally impossible to predict to any extent?

A: Market can not be predicted with 100% certainty, but yes it can be predicted
to a certain degree by calculating risk/reward and the pros and cons of the
market condition, economy and a sleuth of other factors. The market is a
business of probabilities, not certainties.

Following from Ephraim's excellent logic on another question, of
cou

rse it is *possible* to say that. They've got a whole slew of
highly paid practitioners calling themselves anal y is its (or
some such thing) who say exactly those kinds of things. Doesn't
make it true, but they do say such things. As a practical matter
it has only peripheral use value, in my opinion. Ye gads, you
wouldn't believe the number of people in this forum and elsewhere
who are absolutely convinced that electrolysis or some such
gibberish based on burning hydrogen or running it through a
membrane or some such technobabble is going to be the perpetual
motion machine to replace gasoline. Eh. They are in fact saying
those kinds of things. Other than for purposes of hype and hoopla
I doubt it has any relevance for them to say that.

That name doesn't mean anything to me. In any event, no, that
isn't what I'm really saying. What I am saying is that times for
investing in stocks have never been this dangerous since early
1930 when the same set of criminal practices was also widespread.
Fact is, things are more dangerous now than then with the inevitable
Great Depression II certainly destined to outshine GD-I in the same
manner that the criminal manipulations of the Internet Mania
swindles and the recent bear market rally have already grandly
outshone the 1920s bubble and the phony recovery into 1930. You
wanna be a newbie under *these* conditions you had better be an
unusually careful one.

Not that my own "welcome to the stock market" was all that
much more fun: only a very few months prior to the Crash of
1962 followed by the engineered bankruptcy in 1963 of the stock
which the under the counter broker in my neighborhood had dumped
into my portfolio to the extent of 70% of my net worth. Now I'm
sure you don't want your "welcome" to be of that kind, so do
keep an eye out for your assets, okles?