Amateur stock traders are the ones the professionals get part of their profit from. The stock trade is like gambling, with most amateurs just losing money in the end. It's always a calculated risk, though. Like horse races, you can guess which horse will be most likely to win. And like horse races, some gamblers will be lucky very often simply because they're able to guess right many times. But luck can run out and many amateurs have ended up broke after a lucky streak which made them too careless.

Then again, as long as you keep your investments low then, just like betting, your losses can never be too big.

Jim Cramer says you should pick your own stocks, if you have time to do the homework. That's spending about an hour a week per stock doing things like listening to the conference calls, reading quarterly reports, and reading news on the Web.

Do Your Stock Homework