Are you investing or are you going to trade? If investing then 3 years is a starting time frame. Look for decent solid high DY shares, and in 3 - 5 years time, the DYs you will get will look good. I bought DST, 3 years ago at an avg. price of 2200 a share, so am looking at a DY of around 11% now for this year. I only regret not having the cash to buy more at the time. Still if I buy now, then in 5 years hopefully DST will be at 120 or will have done a share split, and my DY, if bought at 6600 will still be decent. Or they could go bust - but i dont think that is likely. If you are going to trade....well be prepared to ride the ups and downs and probably lose some cash, if recent posts on the forum are anything to go by.