You can learn about the stock market in many ways. But most people cannot afford to learn the wrong way—by making expensive mistakes.

The stock market is a way for anyone to own the valuable assets of a company and, as investments, stocks historically have offered a good chance for long-term gains. If you own a well-diversified portfolio of individual stocks or stock funds, your wealth tends to grow when the economy grows. But too many investors succumb to the high-risk pursuit of beating the market by trying to pick winners, predict price trends, or otherwise find opportunities that other investors have missed.
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