In school, students are expected to read and study concepts and processes until they display the level of mastery necessary to move forward. Your dive into the world of online stock investing should follow a similar guideline. If you're unfamiliar with the trading, it's essential you find a book that you can use as a study guide. 

1. Terminology Decoding

Online stock trading is a separate entity within the financial world, and as a result, it has its own set of terminology. To move forward, you need to speak the language. For example, when assessing the stocks, you need to be able to understand what a small, medium, or large cap means in terms of assessing a company's value. You also need to understand that volatility is a measure of the risk of a particular investment. Reading books on the industry is a great way to decode the terminology. 

2. Intelligent Investments

Some people think that the key to success in the stock market is making as many investments as they can. In theory, it might seem that the more investments you make, the higher your potential for gains. However, the key to success is making intelligent investments. Reading a book about online stock investing can help you learn how to analyze investments to see which ones have the most significant potential to provide you with the highest return. 

3. Market Trends

The stock market is not at all predictable, but it is possible to gauge in what direction the market might fluctuate based on specific events. As you begin to make investments and you start to move your investments around, it's essential you know how to read market trends, and also understand what types of factors can affect the trends so that you know if some serious gains or loses might be in your windshield. Books on the industry can help you learn how government policies, world events, and other factors can affect market trends.

4. Past Mistakes

By far, one of the greatest advantages of reading a book on online stock investing is that you get the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of someone else. Many books contain real-world examples of people that have been both successful and unsuccessful in their investment paths. You can use the mistakes of others as a learning tool to ensure you don't make the same error. 

The gains from online stock investing can be great. However, if you don't know what you are doing, the losses can be just as high. But reading beginner online stock market investing books, you can set yourself up in an excellent position and drastically reduce your risk of failure.