Reddit reviews Investing For Dummies

It shouldn't for a beginner. Consider also checking out the introductory tutorials under http://www.fool.co.uk/investing-basics/ - despite its name, Fool is a long established investment site in the UK, and the basic concepts apply to the UK financial industry as much as they do to US stocks.

One of the starting points should be the P/E ratio. This is the market value per share divided by the earnings per share. The higher it is, the higher the growth expected by the market.

Going for the highest possible P/E is not necessarily a good idea - it may be that such growth is simply not possible for the company. My financial lecturer gave me an example a few weeks ago; one of her ex students years ago was taking a long hard look at Nokia, back when it was THE mobile company and nobody had heard of iPhones. He went to his boss. "I think we should sell Nokia." "Why?", asked the boss." "Well, given current performance, vs what the share price is, the only way Nokia can meet market expectations is if every man, woman and child on the planet owns 7 phones each within 3 years." They sold.

Before you stick in real hard earned money, I strongly recommend you practice for several months first with a virtual money portfolio. One I've randomly just googled is http://www.marketwatch.com/game/practice-stocks-for-fun. You may also wish to purchase Investing for Dummies from the well known for Dummies brand of books; the amazon link for the US is here: http://www.amazon.com/Investing-For-Dummies-Eric-Tyson/dp/047090545X

Investing for Dummies No seriously, it isn't actually that bad a place to start for a "Complete Beginner"

Here you go