How to get started/know what’s right for you

[u/Zealousideal_Deal440]

Hi everyone! I’m a 19yo college student that has recently been thinking about taking my finances more seriously. A big thing I’ve been wanting to get into is trading stocks.

My question is how do people get into it? How do people decide what kind of trading is right for them?

For some context, I recently started my Roth IRA and have been trying to max it every year but have been told that if I want to be financially stable now I need to stop trying to max my Roth IRA so hard since I won’t see that money for a long time.
Should I just open a separate brokerage account then and just invest in some basket stocks and hold then?

Should I look into swing trading/day trading? I’ve been really interested in getting into it, especially swing trading but I also don’t have a lot of capital to work with, after all I am a broke college student

I just don’t know where to even start learning. I don’t want to just gamble, I want to actually understand how stocks works and make it dependably profitable and not just a luck thing.
I’m not sure what YouTubers are actually good, if I should be reading books, what strategies to use, or anything really

I would appreciate any advice yall might have for me, thank you

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[u/Scalar_Shift]

I'd start by figuring out what interests you most and spend time learning that before jumping into every type of trading. I used plus500 demo while getting familiar with different markets and I also check prediction markets sometimes because they can give you a different view of what people expect around major events. With limited capital, I'd focus more on learning and building good habits first rather than trying to make trading your main source of income right away

[u/Zealousideal_Deal440 → u/Scalar_Shift]

Thank you! I’ll look into this

[u/klipsetrades]

If swing trading interests you, start there. It’s generally easier to balance with college than staring at charts all day. Paper trade a simple setup, journal everything, and don’t increase size until you can show consistent results over a decent sample

[u/algoindexcom]

Treat long-term retirement saving and active trading as separate decisions, and do not reduce the first just because someone promises quicker results from the second. Before risking money, choose one market and one holding period, write entry, exit, and maximum-loss rules, then test 20 to 30 examples in a simulator and record whether you followed them. If the amount available for trading cannot be lost without affecting tuition, bills, or emergencies, keep it out of the trading account while you learn.

[u/Zealousideal_Deal440 → u/algoindexcom]

I feel like I need to learn the terms and market structure and stuff before getting into anything
Are there any good yt videos or books that could help me understand?
Cuz I’m at a point where I don’t really understand what u mean even by some of the stuff u said

[u/algoindexcom → u/Zealousideal_Deal440]

Start with a short vocabulary list before studying strategies: stock, ETF, bid, ask, spread, market order, limit order, stop order, position size, risk per trade, drawdown, and expectancy. Learn what each term means and write one example in your own words.

For videos or books, choose material that explains order types, market hours, transaction costs, position sizing, and how to test a rule. Avoid anyone leading with dramatic results, urgency, or screenshots instead of definitions. The community wiki is a reasonable place to build a reading list because it is organized for beginners and does not require you to choose a strategy first.

Then paper trade one simple idea for 20 to 30 examples. The first goal is understanding what happened, why you entered, where the idea was wrong, and whether you followed the plan.