@thegreenhand
What I would recommend is to install robinhood. Toss $100 in there and play around. There is no commission charges there which go a long way. The only part with them is they only open premarket 30 minutes before market so you get last picks. Its really good though for buy and holding. You will learn quick.
Then get on a real broker like ibkr. You get access as soon as pre market opens so you get 1st picks. Commission fees can hurt, though if you make lots of trades.
Understand the basics like support and resistance. As you certainly don't want to buy right at the top of resistance. You want to buy right at support, or if resistance broke (and its a confirmed break which becomes the next level of support). Or if a stock took a huge dump, it will always have a bounce. One of my biggest trades was after warren buffet dumped all his airlines. It bounced hard and scored 800% in 2 days on options. Understand how candles work. Its all very analytical (with some guessing / praying lol)
After trading for a bit it really all starts to make a lot of sense. Any lame brain can make money in the market, just takes lots of patience and keeping your eye on the news. And not making silly trades.
I like ER gambles. 4 times a year each stock reports their earnings. These are when big moves happen.
Open Interest which is the amount of open contracts. The more the means big moves are coming.
IV - What the math says on how much volatility will come.
And if you like math, you will love options. All the greeks need to be known (outside this scope lol).
Its fun stuff. But also really stressful if you are gambling money that you really cannot afford to lose. Or if you take hard losses, it will be in your nature to try and recover the losses which can only send you deeper. I never lose a penny of my own money. However did lose nearly 75% of my profits from 2019 / 2020 march shorting (was up huge) in april. I refused to believe the market could keep going up. Took my profits left and been doing just the odd trade here or there. Once trump is out, and Biden comes I think the market will be more fair. Impossible to trade in a market that goes straight the fuck up. But they have to burn the dollar to do this. DXY (dollar index) just fell under 92. Not so good, they don't have much more to burn so see very little upside from here in the indexes. But trump has defied my predictions since day 1 that bastard! Cannot wait until he is gone.
EDIT: Oh, get up on stocktwits. You need the community as well to see whats being said. And news rolls through there 1st. And dude on youtube called claytrades. I learned a ton from him on TA and fast scalping.
Good luck on your stock journeys. Crypto is much BS and immature next to stocks. No comparison. No regulation. All inside trading. Fake stable coins like tether / real usd / true usd which are just coins made up, produced and then used to buy BTC. The true marketcap of BTC is not even close to what it claims. Most BTC owned is on margin / bought with produced stable coins.