Economics & the stock market.
I consider myself to be an investor, and I think that pure traders are crazy. I at least wouldn't be a trader myself. I'm more of a fundamentals and macro-economic indicators kind of guy, but have been trying to find some reliable market breadth technical indicators. The CVI and the Advance/Decline indicators are very enticing, but only as a supplement to the fundamentals.
It takes quite a bit of time and energy to be a good investor and make any money at it.
One of the things that I do is look for reliable commentators and sources of information. The way I see it, it is virtually impossible to have a bead on every aspect of the market and economic events.
I have learned quite a bit and have improved at investing over the past few years:
before 2005 - I only had mutual funds, and didn't have much of a clue about stocks, and was actually a little afraid of them.
2005 - I had been toying with stocks, but still didn't have much direction and my picks were uncalculated and somewhat blatant. If I broke even, then I was very lucky to do so. I had discovered Jim Cramer and his "Mad Money" TV show, which I loved.
2006 - I had been watching Cramer for awhile and had learned to take him with a grain of salt, but some of his ideas were good and made sense to me. I bought Cramer's book also, which helped me out quite a bit. My picks started getting much better and more calculated. I at least broke even, if not made a little money.
2007 - I more or less stopped piggy-backing on Cramer, partially because I wanted to be able to get my own picks. I also discovered Dr. Stephen Leeb and his Market Forecasts, which I read religiously(www.completeinvestor.com). I made some money. Granted, it wasn't much, but I at least made some.
2008 - The DJIA dropping from 13,500 to around 12,000 hasn't helped me much so far this year.
I keep learning more and improving as I go.
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