@Inspired2learn, since you are inspired to learn…
When I was working, other scientists and engineers would sometimes ask me how to invest. I never, ever give investment advice. My answer was, “All of us have spent countless hours studying complex subjects that we never use in real life. In my case, the best example was Quantum Mechanics. But we all use money in real life, every single day. Doesn’t it make sense to study investing as carefully as the academic subjects?”
I studied finance, accounting and economics while working on an M.B.A. But I believe in lifelong learning (especially when money is involved) so I continued reading.
Here is a reading list, which doesn’t include the many, many hours I have spent poring over the Federal Reserve database. (Available by Googling FRED and a subject like “10 year Treasuries” or “CCC Bonds” or VIX or “Employment, male, 25-54” and hundreds of others.) I also read John Mauldin and John Hussman and Mike Shedlock and Doug Noland regularly. They provide hard data.
I have paid subscriptions to the WSJ and NY Times. But the context comes from books.
“The Intelligent Investor,” by Benjamin Graham.
“Making the Most of Your Money,” by Jane Bryant Quinn. (This is a personal finance, not an investing, book but very worthwhile.)
“Manias, Panics and Crashes,” by Kindlenberger
“This Time is Different,” by Reinhart and Rogoff
“Secular Cycles,” and “Ages of Discord,” by Peter Turchin
“The Lords of Easy Money,” by Christopher Leonard, et.al.
“The Price of Time,” by Edward Chancellor
" 21st Century Monetary Policy: The Federal Reserve from the Great Inflation to COVID-19," by Benjamin S. Bernanke
I also learned about investment from my beloved Grandma Tema, whose investing experience went back to the 1920s. When I told her I was making good money in the stock market, she said, “Yes…but is it all on paper?” Grandma and Grandpa were on a cruise to Europe in October 1929. When they arrived in Paris, they met American expatriates whose stock market wealth suddenly evaporated and couldn’t even afford a ticket home to the U.S. Grandpa never invested again, but Grandma secretly saved her household money and invested it in the stock market after World War 2, rightly anticipating the economic boom of the 1950s and 1960s. But she also lived through the nasty recessions along the way to my adulthood, especially during the 1970s.
An investor is different from a speculator. (Benjamin Graham). Speculators ask about daily swings in the market. Investors recognize that a capitalist economy has waves that result from accumulation of imbalances that (slowly or suddenly) reverse to seek equilibrium. I recognized the characteristic pattern of a stock market bubble in 2021 (especially the concentration of speculation in a few tech stocks) and got out of its way.
The METAR Board is a place to keep up-to-date on markets and the Macro economy. Lots of smart people here. But you need to put the work into getting the background so you can understand the big picture. Tease the signal out of the noise.
Wendy