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Greg EcklundLeon makes a great point about the market...a lot of people thought they were geniuses for buying JDSU or CSCO and making 100% per year when in fact they lucked into a raging bull market. Many people have a narrow view of the market and seem to believe that just because the Dow or Nasdaq hasn't done anything for years, that nothing has gone up. Those people have missed bull markets in high yield debt, commodities and commodity stocks, foreign stocks, Utilities, many restaurant stocks, etc.
I have been investing and trading for a living for the past five years and can definitely say that it takes a hell of a lot of work in order to do it well. During the bubble years, too many people that didn't know what they were doing thought they could become rich by investing in garbage companies like DrKoop.com or TheGlobe.com - there was simply too much "dumb money" out there.
If someone came to this board and announced that he or she was new to vintage cards and was now buying thousands of dollars worth of raw T206 Hall of Famers, they would likely be given friendly advice and also deservedly ridiculed. The experts on this board would ask the pertinent questions like whether the person could spot a reprint, a trimmed card, or whether they even knew how to properly grade and value a card. Stocks are the same way - if you don't know how to spot signs of fraud or how to do basic things like read a financial statement, then you are the equivalent of a baseball card collector who can't tell a T206 from a T207. As with any endeavor where your money is at risk, educating yourself is the best thing you can do.