I'm gonna tell you something important. Keep in check how much time you actually spend researching and investing and reading about stocks.
When I started I put in everything I had which was about 9 k into the market. I did my DD and learned the terms I tried to understand things.
I was beginning to make money, slowly and surely. But I realized something. The amount of time I was putting in and the amount of stress I was dealing with was no where near worth the profit.
I sold the majority of my shares and put about 5 k in ETF's and with the rest I bought a nice computer and a nice DSLR camera (canon t3i) this was 4 years ago.
My ETF's are up way more then I would have expected and and I've been able to contribute a lot more into etf's and actually go long on a few stocks as well.
Instead of stressing over a few points up and down in the market and reading baitclick ads on motley fool and zero hedge like in the past I taught myself photography, and photshop. Then I learned html and css, followed by bootstrap, jquery, and javascript. I built and sold many websites. I've done countless photoshoots and traveled the world.
Sure you will hear stories like the one floating around today about the japanese guy who turned 13k into 250 million. or the hydro kid from wallstreet bets who was up 50 k... But remember when people are losing money the story doesnt make it to the front page. Most people don't like to talk about it.
Learn something that will make you money. I knot its not fun but set up a paper account and start with 10 k. read a couple books and go to investopia every day and read articles for 30 minutes a day.
so now you know options, puts, calls, how to read reports and hopefully read them between the lines. Now pick an industry. Tech, pharma, auto sector, financials sector whatever you are most interested in.
then see how the stock reacts to news. what happens to the stock before an earnings report, what happens after, whats the volume like on any paritcular day and why. Which hedgefunds or fatcat billionaires are holding, shorting, or selling it.
Then try to make 10% a year on your $ if your lucky lol.
I'm a 33 yo canadian living in korea and im up 430k last I checked but dont listen to me really I dont know anything,