stocks?! o_o

*"I wasn't really playing Smash Bros. when I made that audio..."*

I feel so betrayyyyyeeeedddddd...! ;_____;

...I kid. :3 Also, I'm most active on stocks-related subreddits, so I can give you stock advice. *Highly questionable advice*, but still...! :D

(NOTE: OK, I was trying to keep this post short -- no really! -- but it got crazy long, enough that I started throwing these weird divider lines around just so it wouldn't be one big wall of text. If it gets super-boring, just skip to whatever parts you want)

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**THE SEMI-HELPFUL INTRO**

OK, basic idea of stocks is that you buy something when it's cheap, and then sell it when it goes up. If this sounds really clichéd and stupidly vague, I'll give you a more concrete example:

On Monday, the National Bank of Greece (stock symbol $NBG) was trading at $1.00 per share. I bought 300 shares (so $300 worth of stock). Today, it went up to $1.30 per share, so my $300 of stocks was now worth $390. I sold it, and wound up with $90 of *pure profit*. Ninety bucks might not sound like a HUGE DEAL, but considering all I did was buy some stocks, chill for a few days, and then sell it, it's pretty decent. :D

(NOTE: If you're thinking "wow, I should totally invest in NBG now" ... uh, probably not a good idea *now*. There's going to be some big political meeting on Sunday, the Greek Prime Minister will almost certainly troll the rest of the European Union, poop will probably hit the fan, it... might get messy. There's a reason I bailed *today*, is all I'm saying.)

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**DIVERSIFYING... AND STUFF**

So you probably guessed: if you do what I just did, but with more money, more stocks, and more shares, you could make wayyyyy more than just $90. For example, if I'd invested $3000 in the same stock, I could have $900 of PURE PROFIT.

"Wait, so why DIDN'T you put three thousand dollars into it?" you may ask. Well, this is the next big idea in stocks: *diversifying*. Don't put all your money (or, heck, even 20% of your money) into just one thing, because if that thing goes bad, you could seriously lose quite a bit of money. It's better to spread out the wealth, so if one stock goes bad, all your other stocks have still got your back.

*True story:* I know a guy here on Reddit who put 70% of his funds into one stock. The stock tanked, the price went wayyyy down, and a lot of his posts lately have basically been "FML I'm going to start drinking heavily." Don't be that guy! Personally, I think you should never have more than 10% of your money in any single stock.

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**BUT HOW DO I KNOW WHAT TO BUY?!**

...OK, this is probably what you really wanted to know. Well, there's a bunch of stock-related subreddits, and certainly no shortage of people willing to hand out recommendations like cheap candy.

Now, the long, time-consuming, *proper* way to do it is to get some recommendations, and then research the companies, read news about the company, check the company's stock (Yahoo Finance is good for this, though just entering the company's stock symbol on Google will usually turn up basic information). It can take hours to gather information on a company (seriously, I once spent an entire weekend just researching a handful of stocks).

On a lot of subreddits, this is called DD, and has nothing to do with bra sizes (I seriously wondered about that when I was new to investing subreddits, no joke); it's an acronym for "due diligence." If you hang out on stock subreddits, you'll see the term "DD" thrown around every once in a while, usually in the context of "do your own darn DD instead of asking nosy questions!" ._.

Now, the quick-and-dirty way of "researching" is look at a company's stock, and see how much (or how little) it's gone up or down lately. If it stays at more-or-less the same level for several days, then it's *probably* not going to crash. PROBABLY. So, look at how much the price fluctuates (usually it goes up/down by a few cents) and buy it when it's at the "cheap point." You can do this by setting a [limit order](http://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/limitorder.asp), which is basically you telling your brokerage "yo, dude, buy this stock when it reaches this price." Later, after you've bought it, set another limit order to sell ("yo, dude, when it goes up to this price, then sell it!").

(NOTE: Only "properly" researching a stock is considered actual investing. Quick-and-dirty "research" is usually just called "speculating," or in more normal terms "straight up gambling on the stock market." I do a lot of the quick-and-dirty stuff, but that's probably because I'm Filipino and shamelessly gambling is apparently in my blood. Oh well!)

Buying a stock when it's cheap and then selling it a few days later when it goes up is usually called "flipping," though I usually just refer to it as the "hit it and quit it" strategy. This is partly because it's easier for me to remember, and partly to troll people who think holding a stock for months and months is a good idea. (It sometimes is, but you can usually make more money by flipping stocks every few days, rather than waiting months for a stock to jump way up)

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**403(b), or "you are here"**

...maybe I shouldn't have put the section most applicable to you so far down? Err... sorry. ;_;

ANYWAY. I'm a little shaky on 403(b) plans, since none of the jobs I've ever worked at had them (I think 403(b) plans are only used by certain non-profits, medical organizations, public schools, and churches). Anywho, if I remember right, you're only allowed to trade mutual funds -- as opposed to trading actual stocks directly -- on a 403(b).

This kind of sucks, because mutual funds usually have maintenance fees, take forever to make money, and -- this is the worst part -- you don't really have any control over your money. It's all managed by someone else, and if that person screws up, all you'll get is a shrug and an insincere "sorry for screwing you over and losing a lot of your money."

That said, some people really like mutual funds because it means they can just dump their money somewhere and then forget it exists for a few years. Or several years. Actually, I'm not sure how these people live with themselves; I'd go crazy if I couldn't mess around on the stock market directly. X_X

...so yeah, unless 403(b) plans have changed since I last looked (or I'm just horribly confused), you're probably stuck with mutual funds. Of course, you could open up a brokerage account directly (I use Fidelity, but I know quite a few people who use brokerages like Scottrade, E-TRADE, Robinhood, etc) and trade on your own. If I got $20,000 it'd go straight to a brokerage account so I could ~~gamble it all away like a true Filipino~~ I mean *SPECULATE* on the stock market. :D

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**THE END**

Wow, that was way too long; I think I might have bored people to death. On the bright side, I finished cooking dinner while I was typing this. Seriously, this took so long to type that I started cooking the rice while listening your audio, and it finished while I was editing spelling mistakes out of my post. :D