Top Stock Brokers

Interactivebrokers.com is my favorite discount broker. It is especially good for stock traders that do not trade many shares being that they only charge 1 penny per share. So if you buy only 100 shares at a time it is the right broker for you.
Ameritrade is a great discountbroker. There site is well laid out and the stock streamer is one of the best I have seen. The only downfall for Amertrade is the price per trade. It is $11 per trade which can get pricy if you trade alot.
TradeKing carries the banner of cheapest broker.TradeKing isn't perfect: You can't buy bonds online, and all funds carry a $14.95 transaction fee.
Firstrade has all the tools most online investors will need, while keeping its commissions at a low $6.95 per trade.

Top Books on Stocks

With practical demonstrations Benjamin Graham shows the reader how to interpret financial statements such that only undervalued companies with long-term prospects are considered worthy of investment.
This book will teach you how to build a portfolio, show you how to analyze a company, and how to read financial statements. This book was written by Peter Lynch who is the famed investor and manager of the Magellan mutual fund.
This book will take you past P/E ratios, book value, moving averages, etc. and shows what really moves stock prices:people. It is a battle between bulls and bears. This book was first published in 1927,and is still a must read.
In A Random Walk Down Wall Street you will discover how much fun it can be to beat the pros at their own game - and learn a user-friendly, long-range investment strategy that really works.
Trading for a Living helps you discipline your Mind, shows you the Methods for trading the markets, and shows you how to manage Money in your trading accounts so that no string of losses can kick you out of the game.

Stock Tips

Before you even buy a stock, set your Stop loss and Stop profit and stick to them!!! If you follow this 1 rule you will be a more succesful trader.
Always use limit orders vs market orders. With market orders, you never know what price you will be paying for a stock, with limit orders you do.
Etrade is a great discountbroker. There site is well laid out and the stock streamer is one of the best I have seen. The only downfall for Amertrade is the price per trade. It is $11 per trade which can get pricy if you trade alot.

Top Stock Sites

Marketocracy.com is a great site to practice investing before risking money. Their site has a great design along with forums to get ideas about which stocks to buy.
Sec.gov is the site to go to to see company filings. Here you can see information about insider buys and sells and other useful information.
Stockcharts.com is the place where you need to go if you want to look at charts. The site is easy to navigate, and you can do alot of really cool stuff.
Yahoo.com Yahoo has the best stock forums by far. I have searched and searched and they seems to be the place where everybody goes.

Faq about Stocks

Some stocks pay dividends. This means that for every share you own, you are paid a portion of the company's earnings.
A stock split is essentially when a company increases the number of shares.
The I.D. tag for stocks, learn what ticker symbols are and how they can help you research your investments.
Equity ownership in America has grown over the past two decades, and now half of all U.S. households and one in three individuals own equities.
you have to be 18 to buy any stocks.
Look towards index funds. Most have low expense ratios and typically outperform fund managers.