[spounnypneups]

I think the views of the stock market here are a bit too harsh. To say its rife with corruption seems to be a bit of an overstatement. I'd like some more proof before believing that. No doubt, there is some foul play with insider trading but that is illegal and there is foul play in many aspects of life.

Most people who trade in the stock market either go in blind, follow analysts like it's Haq, or give their money to professionals to invest. The first will almost guarantee you a loss, the second and third require you to actually pick a worthy candidate and not just any Tom, **** and Harry that seems to know what they are on about. Otherwise you risk someone playing around with your money and losing it.

Those people who invest themselves usually do it without much knowledge and suffer big. And when they do they sometimes unfortunately have a tendency to think foul play is going on. A lot of people will see a stock rise, buy based solely on that and expect it to continue to rise. When it falls and they lose they can't understand what bucked the trend. Others who are a bit more well versed will actually look into a companies quarterly reports and see what the state of the company is. Unfortunately many people even then lack the ability to pick out the necessary information.

For example. By law a company has to provide correct information on all their earnings, assets liabilities, profits etc etc. false information will cause in legal backlashes against the company. However, even by telling the truth companies can hide their failings by using language and figures which a laymen can't recognise as meaningless waffle.

Have you ever heard a report from a company saying:

"we had a terrible 3 months. Profits have decreased substantially due to a mix up in the management."

Instead what you'll see is:

"we had a great quarter. Sales have breached a record amount. Up 20% from our previous high. As a result profits of £12m were earned"

All that might be true but it's waffle. Record sales and record profit alone don't tell you anything about whether a company is struggling or doing well. Of the people who bother to read these reports, they see a glowing report and invest heavily, and when the company fails and their shares fall they can't understand what went wrong and they automatically think there is foul play.

Making money from stocks is not an easy thing. It required hours worth of research and analysis of companies before you can decide who to invest in.

The only issue is whether it's halaal or not as some say it's halaal and there's haraam. Jazaakallah Abu Hajira for providing some links on this. I'm slowly working my way through them.