Originally Posted by fluffygrrl

More to the point : I just talked a friend out of holding AMCPX, which she was and which is shit.

Your 500 will be good enough to play around on the stock market, but here's some tips :

General :

Stay away from options.
Stay away from things you don't understand.
Use this opportunity to read about, and understand more things. You'd be surprised how much having money down the line motivates you to read, and understand.

Speciffic :

We're in a recession. Consequently, the financials well be up and down, the raw materials up first and down later, the disposable consumer low and lower, manufacturing low and rising, and tech nobody knows what the fuck is doing (read : higher and then collapse).

Find your own picks, only go with 1 stock at a time, short the crap, long the good stuff, and good luck.