[midas]

1. Buy a book like Stock Market for Dummies
2. Buy a book on reading a financial statement
3. Buy a book on basic company valuation

After completing steps 1,2 & 3 you now know more than 99% of individual investors but less that 10% of your average Wall Street trader.

After that, forget everything you read in those books because most people can't beat your average index fund in the long-run and individual stock trading may have more to do with market money flow than fundamental analysis.

A better stategy is to pick a highly cyclical group of stocks like shipping companies or semiconductor equipment manufacturing companies. Learn everything you can about the industry and how those stocks move in cycles and react to money flows and follow them investing both long/short and with options. Good Luck