There are basically 3 different ways to make money in the stock market. These are through appreciation, dividends and option trading. Each of these is a little different and all of them look for different criteria.
1. Appreciation
The first way to make money in the stock market is by buying a stock now and selling it for more later. So if an investor buys a stock at $50 and sells it at $64 it is profitable. This is the simplest way of making a profit from the stock market, and it can be very profitable if you are able to consistently pick stocks that go up faster than the market on average.
To do this it does take some time. You should learn the stock basics and have to figure out how to pick great investments. If you can then it is an extremely powerful way to make money in the stock market.
2. Dividends
Some companies will actually offer you dividend stocks which will pay you a percentage of their earnings month after month, or quarter after quarter depending on the stock.
One of the easiest ways of making money in the stock market is to simply grab a list of dividend paying stocks and get into ones that are both stable and pay out a large dividend. This strategy is easy because you do not have to find a stock that is going to go up, just a stock that will probably not go down.
If you have a lot of money lying around you may actualy be able to get a lot of passive income by investing for dividends.
3. Option Trading
Option trading can be the most powerful strategy in the stock market, but it also takes the most time and comes with the highest risk. When you buy an option you are buying the right to buy the stock at a specific price on or before a specific date.
This allows you to make much higher returns on a stock because you put up a small percentage of the stock in order to profit from the same move. However if the stock does not move in the way you want it to that option can expire worthless and could mean you lose all of your invested money.
