I want to learn a type of active investment trading. What types are there?

Send all your discretionary money to me and I will make you very rich soon.

Or, another choice is to invest it in a low-risk bond fund (check out the bond funds on Vanguard.com. Fill out their little questionnaire to get some ideas.) https://personal.vanguard.com/us/whatweoffer/mutualfundinvesting/quickstart?Link=facet

What state do you live in? Some of the larger states (CA. NY, MA, FL, Ohio, PA) have good tax-free Vanguard bond funds.

Do a lot of research first. Check out the question and answer section on *E-trade, The Motley Fool, and Ameritrade before you get involved.

There are Licesenced Schools all over America , for the study @ Practicing @ the Stock Market..Its a Gamble at best—Good Luck

I trade currency- forex- it’s really time intensive you have to learn it. learn it learn it! it’s not get rich quick it’s about money management. You learn how to read candlesticks, do analysis on market conditions. It’s live and you can do it at home. The good thing is that there’s always a market open that you can trade that matches your schedule. I wouldn’t do it if I worked a full time job but if you have time to do it it’s really good. You learn and trade a demo account at first, then go live with a mini account, then work your way up.

Check out www.weseed.com for a practice site.

Buy gold and silver coins from a reputable outfit and evaluate against Ebay so you don’t get ripped off. Besides that, option trading can yield phenomenal results, then again, you have to know what you are doing. Lastly, learn currencies and buy Canadian dollars against the US or Swiss francs, there again you better get educated or you will get your head handed to you. The US stock market is way to manipulated right now, and unfortunately, fundamental really don’t make much difference anymore, way too risky in my book-gold and silver you can’t go wrong.

Hello Pallen.

First of all, OTC, NYSE, NASDAQ, are not types of trading. They are stock exchanges.
I say, study first and then take on a bit of risk. Investing money is not a way to learn types of trading. You could begin with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_market to sort out some of these terms.

You can do a HUGE amount of learning on your computer. Other places to learn are http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/home.aspx,
http://www.fool.com/investing/index.aspx?source=ifltnvpnv000000, https://order.investorplace.com/index.jsp?sid=SE3138uid=68.164.3.65-1275170261345065, http://club.ino.com/trading/, and
http://www.topstockportfolios.com/ as well as many many other free sites. Once you get started, one leads you to another. You could become familiar with Elliot Wave Theory. Its a little different and I don’t think its mucked up with day traders…but who knows. Type “Robert Precter” into Google and enter a new world. Its certainly not the only world but one with which you can familiarize yourself. At least you’d be way ahead of the game when its time to plunk your money down.

Listen to Trails. Trails had a purrrfect answer. Trails, will you marry me? Love the chapeau.

Gail, I think bond funds are one of the worst investment vehicles around. Historically, they carry the downside of individual bonds (low return) but with no specific rate/date of return. There is no fixed point the investor is guaranteed of a certain amount of money which is the advantage of owning individual bonds. A bond fund can decrease in value by the time you want to sell it. In addition, there are fees that erode profit. At least that’s what my daddy told me. Caveat. Vanguard’s Bond Fund (VFIIX) appears to be one of the best of that breed.

@Carol. The Vanguard NYS triple tax-free bond fund has been a perfect balance with the dividend-yieding common stocks I have owned for years. I have need, for now, only of the interest that the bond fund produces monthly.

The NAT bounces around just a little and I can count on a tidy income flow, even with the not-so great rates. For many years, I was able to re-invest and thus compound the interest.

When the bond fund NAT goes down, the interest goes up. The value on paper of my stock portfolio is also pretty stable. I would not have invested like this when I was young and working. Now it is a good system.

I had a chat with a lawyer who gives advice on financial management; he told me to leave things as is and didn’t charge me.

I have no idea how to tell you (and this is not a criticism) that your ignorance of the subject is abysmal. Do something that truly interests you.