How do you find the best stocks that will make you the most money? My first word of advice to you is this: Next time you read an article saying that it’s easy, stop reading the article. It’s far from easy. Watching the sun rise is easy. Finding the best stocks, much like losing weight is hard and it takes time, patience, and discipline.

First, let’s look at time. Once you get beyond the sensationalist articles that tell you how to strike it rich with little to no investment knowledge, you will find the real experts saying that no less than one hour of research will need to be done on each stock that you own each week. In order to be diversified (having stocks in different areas of the market to avoid huge losses) you will need at least 5 stocks so no less than 5 hours of research per week plus a little more is going to be needed.

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Next, patience. If you are one of those that get a thrill out of watching your stocks move tick by tick in real time on the screen, I’m with you. The truth is that picking the best stocks is largely about picking boring stocks that will appreciate over time. You can still watch your computer screen but you’re going to have to hold them for longer than a day or two. With nearly every stock I buy, I look to hold for quite a long time. Having one exciting stock is ok but your portfolio can be full of them.

Last, discipline. In Jim Cramer’s book, Real Money, he lays out a series of easy to follow rules when picking the best stocks. Along with that, he gives you more rules for when to buy and when to sell. It might sound like a lot of rules, but being disciplined means following rules and that’s how the best investors make money.

If you don’t have the time or don’t feel confident that you can pick the best stocks, consider subscribing to a service like Action Alerts Plus where an expert like best selling author and CNBC commentator Jim Cramer is doing your research for you and all you have to do is buy and sell when he tells you to execute the trade. My secret is that I don’t have enough time to do all of my research so I let Action Alert Plus do it for me.

The average part time stock market investor doesn’t make money in the stock market. This is largely because we don’t do a good job with investing enough time, being patient, and having discipline. Action Alerts Plus will pick the best stocks for you.

If you are tired of working hard at the stock market, click here to find a better way to invest.

The first book I ever read about investing was Jim Cramer’s Real Money. Click here to go to the elementary finance bookstore to order your copy. You can also take a look at the book in the box above. Although the first book, it is still the book I reread once every year.

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