Morningstar Investing Classroom
I wish I had learned about these resources years ago because like most folks, I learned how to trade stocks in bits and pieces - never took a course, never really read a soup-to-nuts book, and never talked to an advisor of any kind. They bill the Morningstar Investment Classroom the "best place to sharpen your investing skills and pick up new ones. Whether you're a novice, an experienced investor, or someplace in-between, we can help you..." It's a collection of 172 courses on stocks, funds, bonds, and portfolio management which each are only supposed to take ten minutes each. After each "course" you take a small quiz and earn points that you can redeem for free merchandise. I decided to give it a whirl.
Each classroom has five levels of courses, 100-level to 500-level, and you're permitted to jump to any course at anytime, so you won't need to finish all 100-levels to take a 200-level. That sort of flexibility is nice because novices can start early and the more experienced can jump straight to what they don't already know. Personally, I decided to take each course in order just so I was sure the foundation they wanted me to learn was established before I tackled harder topics. Well, I skipped straight to the quiz for a few 100-levelers. :)
When you take the quizzes, you earn a points for each correct answer and some of the prizes you can earn are a coffee cup (300 pts), "The Five Rules for Successful Stock Investing" and other books (400 pts), Morningstar Premium Membership or a T-Shirt (650 pts), FundInvestor or StockInvestor subscription (800 pts). The prizes are nice because they're free and you're also learning some solid information while you're going along - a win-win situation so to speak. Give it a shot, you can take the courses without registering but you won't earn points (they have to keep record of it somehow), maybe you'll even learn something...
Have any of you taken these lessons or know of any of the other free "classroom" type resources out there?
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