While you can find a plethora of good information on stocks, you can also find very poor information. Each website claims to have the latest hot picks or the “top ten” stock buys and often they contradict each other. Who do you believe and what about the scams?

You will undoubtedly come across websites and chat rooms that give investment advice or tips about investments, but many of these are not qualified to do so. The information may be wrong or misleading and some websites even repeat incorrect rumors.

First thing that comes to mind is the overflowing amount of spam from unintelligent sources providing some of the stupidest analysis / judgement calls I have ever seen. Be very warry of the Yahoo! Finance Forums and Google Finance Forums.

There is overwhelming evidence that you will not become rich by listening to the advice of others (see Jim Cramer’s Video on the right). As an investor you need raw information, not recommendations. You would not buy a car just by looking at it…nor should you buy a company’s stock without doing significant research. There is no point trying to take control of your finances if you are going to rely solely on a “tip” from a newspaper or a broker or an Internet chat room. It is true that someone may know more about a particular company or stock than you, but they could easily be wrong – so do your own homework!

You need to be certain that you have sound reasons for investing in a particular company. Does the company have an instantly recognizable name? Do you understand what the company does? Do the products or services of the company stand a good chance of being in high demand in a 10, 20 or 30 year time frame? Does it have a management team that moves with the times and is innovative, yet keeps a firm grip on the company’s finances? Most of this information is available in a company’s Annual Report, but make sure that you read it with a degree of skepticism…most reports are written to promote the company.

In the Annual Report, the financial statements, the balance sheet, the profit & loss statement and the cash flow statements are very important. They are important because they will help you assess if the company is providing value for your money. You are going to be buying stocks at a certain price and you will want to make sure that you are not paying an excessive amount. The financial numbers give you a snapshot of the financial structure, strength and growth rate of the company. This type of analysis is often called fundamental analysis, and also includes analysis of the economy and industries related to the company.

Keep in-mind that the historical and present prices of a stock hold clues to the future price. In practice, most analysts use fundamental analysis for short and long term buy/sell decisions and use technical analysis to confirm the decision.

Internet websites are a great place to collect information about companies. Naturally, a company owned website will attempt to portray the company in the most sympathetic light. Depending on how serious you want to be about investing, it is advisable to either visit or subscribe to investment research websites. Research websites are valuable tools for any investor and provide company reviews, give general investing information, market updates, stock pickers, stock ratings, watch-lists, portfolio managers, charts, share indexes, newsletters, alerts and model portfolios.

So, how can you structure a stock portfolio to maximize your wealth, ensure your peace of mind, give you total control of your investments, be easy to manage and give satisfaction?

Here is a recommended strategy that has worked well for many do-it-yourself investors:

1. Subscribe to a well respected investment research website dedicated to analyzing financial information for investors. They are independent from companies they list, do not receive commissions or brokerage and rely solely on investor subscriptions for income. They have to give their subscribers quality information to maintain subscriber confidence.

2. Look for the model portfolios they have developed and study the methodology they have used to create and maintain each portfolio.

3. Read the research reports supplied for each stock and study the graphs supplied for price movements and trading volumes. Get a good feel for both the long term and the short term trends of the stock. Remember… the world’s best investors (Warren Buffet and Company) always have a highly diversified portfolio. It is important to study to continuously study companies from different sectors such as: Energy, Technology, Health Care, Financial ect. Two really awesome tools to suffice your needs for this are discussed in one of my previous articles, Two Essential Stock Market Analysis Tools

4. Test each portfolio within a designated test period i.e., one month, one quarter, one year etc. Depending on the website, you can set up each of the model portfolios in a free portfolio manager provided on the website with unlimited stocks. Set a starting date for a test period where you “buy” stocks listed in the model portfolio at the closing price for that day. Make sure you include brokerage as it is part of the cost base for the stock. The website should either maintain up-to-date or 20 minute delayed stock prices, so a running balance can be maintained for the profit/loss for each stock over the designated period.

5. Compare each portfolio’s published results with the results that you have achieved in the portfolio manager. They should agree with each other when the same stocks are compared over the same time period. Your testing should develop a level of confidence in the model portfolio.

6. Determine the best model portfolio for you to use. You can do this using the last the last three months of stock price history or perform a trial evaluation for the next three months of future prices. You can use one of the existing model portfolios or create your own from the stocks selected.

7. Subscribe to an online broker and begin trading. (See my Add a Little Power to Your Dollar article which compares different online discount brokers)

8. Monitor stocks daily and review the performance of your actual portfolio against the model quarterly. (See my Two Essential Stock Market Analysis Tools video).

9. Be mentally prepared to lose it all. Some days you will gain big, and others you will lose. Self-confidence is the key to being a long-term winner.

10. I saved this one for last because it was a mistake I made all too often. DO NOT RUSH INTO ANYTHING! I cannot stress that enough. Despite all of my Fantasy Stocks training, when I first started, I realized how different real money truly was. Example, If you are watching a stock, and it rises 8% within a week, most likely it will drop back down — Wait so that you can Buy Low and Sell High!

Losing money can be painful, but being stupid and hasty with your decisions is down right excruciating.

As a final word of caution…nothing is for certain in this world except for death and taxes. This also applies to the stock market. Be prepared for some ups and downs and be ready to sell stocks to cut losses. If the core of your portfolio is made up of stocks that have strong capital growth and a reasonable dividend you will do very well. Just remember, you need to be passionate and dedicated to trump the investments world — Don’t let money blind you.

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Feel free to share some stories about your first investment encounters.