The 13 Steps to Investing Foolishly
Step 13: Get Fully Foolish

Sure, you can read You Have More Than You Think, The Motley Fool Investment Guide, and Rule Makers, Rule Breakers and be more prepared to invest in today's hurly-burly markets than nine out of ten people. But how can you become better able to handle the twists and turns of individual stocks than 99 out of 100 investors? We've got six words for you, friend, and they ain't "Call market predictor Elaine Garzarelli now." They are "Check out The Motley Fool online." Online you will find hundreds of additional educational and interactive features, online discussions, and much, much, more.

So where do you begin?

Get Your Financial House In Order

Your first goal should be to get your personal finances in tip-top shape before embarking on any Foolish investing. In our Personal Finance area, you'll find in-depth coverage on such matters as getting a broker, paying for college, banking, taxes, investing for kids, and buying insurance, homes, and cars.

Learn the Basics of Investing

You can then move over to the Fool's School for an explanation of different investment vehicles, a tutorial on starting an investment club, the lowdown on mutual funds, an area that tracks all the major market indexes (including our own FOOL 50 Index), and an explanation of dividend reinvestment plans.

You can also hone in on How to Value Stocks, featuring articles on how to value companies using earnings, cash flows, revenues, and all sorts of stuff found on the balance sheet.

Help Is on the Way

We also provide a Help Desk, with everything from Foolishly Answered Questions (FAQs) about anything imaginable to direct links to our non-stop Ask a Foolish Question discussion board. We'll answer your questions right there online. If you see any problems or anything you'd like done more or done better, simply drop a note at our Improve the Fool discussion board.

We Walk the Walk

Plenty of investment advisors are happy to tell you what they think you should do. Very few are willing to put their money where their mouth is and explain exactly how to manage a portfolio using a specified investment approach -- warts and all. Even fewer do so and whup the market.

We are not investment advisors. But our real-money portfolios, which you'll find in our Strategies area -- including the Rule Breaker Portfolio, Rule Maker Portfolio, and Drip Portfolio, among others -- illustrate the process of imperfectly managing your own money while bettering the indexes over the long haul. The results reflect all commissions and spreads that an individual investor would be charged -- and we do aim to beat the S&P 500 handily over the long term.

These portfolios are designed to answer that burning question: "How do successful investors weigh the news and rumors that surround their individual stocks?" Tune in whenever you're in the mood to find out.

Generate Investment Ideas

Our Strategies area as well as our Fool News & Commentary will plug you into the news coming out of companies you already own while identifying other potential investment opportunities -- all with a Foolish touch of analysis. Day in and day out, you'll be exposed to issues and lessons important to individual investors.

For those who cannot tune in on a daily basis, we offer an archive of everything we publish in our Today's Features page. Bookmark it and you'll never miss your favorite features again.

Our Quotes & Data area offers a number of research resources, including earnings estimates, press release databases, financial information, and historical price charts for every stock out there. In addition, you can plug into Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings and dig for all the cool facts and numbers that will help you evaluate your investments.

Motley Fool Research is a premium products area where we cover a wide range of industries and individual companies. Whether you're looking for quarterly reports on companies like Microsoft, America Online, Intel, Starbucks, Yahoo! and many others, or our Internet Report or Guide to Biotech Investing, you can find it all in our Research area.

In other corners of our forum, we bring you stock screens set to various Foolish criteria and Duels featuring the pros and cons of a popular stock in a Foolish debate. We also offer information on conference calls and help locating those hard-to-find replay numbers. When you're ready to start investing, we can even help you open a discount brokerage account.

Talk With Others

On our thousands of discussion boards, you can debate the value of publicly traded stocks, talk over the merits of a new approach to investing, get money-saving tips, or just ask whatever question happens to pop into your head. Try reading the Post of the Day or the Fribble, examples of some of the best material submitted by our readership.

Your Fool

When you register, you'll set up your own, customized Fool page. "My Fool" allows you to quickly view your favorite message boards, portfolios, and Fool features all on one page. You can also change your Fool preferences such as your e-mail address, your password, and your personal profile. Finally, My Fool lists all of the perks we offer you as a member of The Motley Fool. Check My Fool often to see the new offerings.

Bringing It All Together

Investing is not just something you do once -- it is an ongoing process that requires time and attention. A solid, well-diversified portfolio that moves beyond simply buying an index fund requires work... work that you can do at The Motley Fool online, sharing with other Fools as you go along. Whether it is in our educational areas or out on the discussion boards, you can hang out with Fools and beat the pants off Wall Street.

Welcome, and Fool on!

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