I originally had to do a project about the stock market in one of my business classes. A very excellent teracher named Bob Noble (or some variation of that), he worked at like northrupp grumann i think. Anyway, he had us use a fake $50,000 budget and invest into stocks of our choice and with a strategy of any kind. We then tracked them over the semester and made summation of the differences at the end. I came out on top and by a good amount.

I kept tracking these same stocks over the years and they have continued to do decent (actually, above decent). Recently I have wanted to make these stock options a reality and hang in for the long run.

I have read about great tips on http://www.fool.com/ . You have to serach for the good, basics articles, but they seem to be of book quality, dummy audience targeted and free.

I am sure one day that I will bang down a couple thou on my favorite stocks and make money over a 5-10 year period.

Look into this: http://simulator.investopedia.com/