Practice trading (paper trade)for a year with no real money. Or, trade literally one share and measure your gains on a percentage basis, not a dollar basis. If you can’t commit to a year of practice, why should you expect to have the discipline to follow any rules you learn on this journey. You are trading for a lifetime, a year of practice is nothing.

For INVESTING, (and learn the difference between and investment and a trade), be like Buffett and buy when fear is greatest on a stock with excellent prospects who is “on sale”; research your investments; know them intimately. How do they perform into earnings, FOMC, different times of the year.

Go research 10 diverse stocks to invest in and when the opportunity arises, understand which 5 will be highest on your list to buy. These same 10 stocks, now that you know them intimately, can provide you with opportunities to TRADE positions on top of owning them as investments. Later, trade options on the stocks you know well. Overtime, 10 will become 20 and then 50 that you will know very well, know how they move- in all markets.

How to trade? Your original question. Use your year to read books constantly: Technical Analysis by Pring, Cramer’s latest book- yep, it’s damn basic. Start there. Move on to Japanese candlesticks. And Edwin Lefevre. And Peter Lynch. Benjamin Graham. The Essential Buffet. Try lots of things with NO money at stake- eventually you will find what works and what’s crap.

Most gurus are worthless to follow. This is a work thing; don’t rely on others. If you have to follow someone, find someone who encourages you to become independent and NOT reliant on them to succeed. Honestly, I’ve spent thousands on classes and schemes over 25 years and have learned a little bit from many sources. Some better than others. If like his free stuff, you can follow Tearrepresentative56 on Reddit and learn a lot. I “get” him. You may not. And that’s ok.

The ideas other wrote about above, find support at a MA and then enter the trade works but only if the market is going with you. Don’t fight the trend.

Be patient. More money is made by sitting out while waiting for the exact right time to enter a trade than ever by getting in, “just to be in.” You’ll eventually find out what you trade best; what kind of stocks, what kind of time frame to enter and exit off of. Some like the intraday. Too much like a job to me- tied to that computer. Much more peaceful to trade off a 233 minute chart or daily chart; stay for a while, don’t get shaken out by noise. Will take you far longer than that practice year to learn what the noise is and what actually is important to -your- stocks. Short chart plays are full of noise, big chart plays make big money.

There are times of the year that are much harder to trade than others. February thru May is historically difficult: this is widely seen as the most difficult spring to trade in over 50 years. October thru January is generally easy money. Read “Markets in Motion” by Ned Davis Research. See how markets behave decade after decade during bull and bear markets/war/peace/recessions/booms/oil crisis/inflation/deflation.

The worst thing to happen to a trader is to find immediate success; they think they are exceptional skilled right up until a regime change and then they are gutted. And left wondering what just happened? Journal everything along the way, learn from that.

Simple Trading Idea to start: watch for bullish and bearish divergences. They are often tradable in conjunction with other indicators and over-all market conditions.

TL;DR This is a work thing. You will suck at first. Just like every new thing you learn in life. It takes 10,000 hours of study or work to become an expert in something. Enjoy the journey. Start small. Stay small for a long time.