I just started messing with the stock market for the first time last week. I've played simulations using the real market values before in class and such and have faired pretty well. Came in 3rd in my finance class a few semesters ago out of 40 people and the first place person was the professor.

Last week I bought 20 shares of Wells Fargo Co. as a long term investment and am looking to make a few more purchases in the coming weeks. I have about 20 other stocks on my watch list that I am looking at but I am not sure which one I want to invest in yet. Or I just may buy more shares of WFC. I'm not looking to get rich off the stockmarket or try to earn some fast cash and risk getting burned. I'm just taking some extra money I have saved up and investing in it and playing around with it rather than just burning it on shit I don't need. But ofcourse I would like to earn as much as I can. More because of my competitive nature though.    

I was just wondering who else here plays the stock market or atleast has an interest in following the stock market. And what stocks do you own or what stocks are you looking to invest in or think is a good investment? 

Not with a great depression upon us.

does that mean you don't have any money or you don't think it's wise to invest in stocks?

This is probably the best time to invest, as companies are significantly undervalued due to lack of confidence and are not likely to drop much as the price is already worst-case-scenario. There is a risk of it going bust, but if its financials are still good today they're only going to get better once the recession passes. The companies with good business models will do the best during the recession and will be the dominant players after it.

yes soleron, except some of them will likely go bankrupt, and then you'll get NOTHING.

Yes, there's a big difference between talking theory and actually risking your money. Unless you're a major bank, of course, in which case if you lose money on your investments the government will pay out instead.

Most of the ones that will go bankrupt already went bankrupt. And who are the ones that lost a ton of money on those? The people that invested when it seemed the banks were doing great. The time when they thought there was no risk of a bank going bankrupt. Citigroup's stock is under $4 right now, less than 2 years ago it was above $50. I dont know about you but I'd much rather run the risk of buying a stock that goes from $4 to $0 that had a chance to go up and give me a 300-400% return than have a stock that goes from $50 to $4 that only had a chance to give me a 10-20% return.
I'm not saying I would invest in citigroup as I think there are better investments out there right now and its unclear how much control the government will have on them. But the people that are going for broke on the stock market are not the people who are investing now but those that invested in the so called "low risk" times.
Also as for Wells Fargo it is one of the least likely banks to go under and there is a reason why it's stock price is still hovering just below $20 as opposed to under $4. The bank industry will never go away and when things start to swing back up Wells Fargo will go from a regional player to one of the national players and fill a lot of the void left behind by the other banks.

I don't agree.  About a month ago would have been a good time to invest and then sell short, but the market is getting even more skittish.  I think we are going to hit another bottom soon.  THEN will be a good time to invest.

What system is it on?