Am I a newbie? After 6 years of investing I think I can say that I have reached the first rung or two of the ladder. When I bought my first tentative bid of 200 DST at 2450, with the ALSI at 8860, I thought I was taking a huge risk. I had little understanding of the inner workings of the JSE; Puts and Calls were words used in a bar: please Call the barman to Put my beer here. Ratios were vague mathematical terms that I only could just fathom. I didn't know that a stock and a share were the same thing. I was super green. About the only thing going for me was a willingness to learn, read and possibly take a risk. There was no way I could imagine an ALSI of above 32000. Soon after the DST purchase I bought a couple more stocks - some pretty lame ones, some good which I still hold and some the transformed into other through stock splits and the like. Over the past six years I have subsequently learnt a few ratios, I can read a balance sheet, albeit with difficulty, and I know that I do not know enough to get involved in trading, derivates, puts, calls, warrants, SSFs and anything else with gears (other than my mountain bike). So where am I today, after watching a 250% gain on the JSE, then a 50 % drop, and now a slight recovery. Do I consider myself to be a qualified investor - hell no! I think I just make the first rung or two of the long ladder to financial security. Important lessons that I have learnt are - that I will never know enough, and that I need to keep reading and learning - stay out of debt - use your own money with caution and use the banks money with extreme caution - have the nackers to take a risk, but don't risk your pension. And most importantly stay in the game - because things will get better - it's just a question of time. Without the help of people on this forum, and friends around me, I would have been out of the game a while back, so we should all try to help any newbie with as much good honest and practical advice as we all can. This is not a dig at pervious posts about newbies - but rather an appeal to help all who ask for it - irrespective of the question. And while I agree with Barry's point about terms being used in the wrong manner - it is up to the experienced people to help out. That's my bleeding heart view anyway.