In the not too distant past, investors met in person and organized their own investment clubs. Problem is, you’re limited to the few people that share the same interest and lives nearby, but these people are usually just amateurs whom you can’t learn much from or get actual good investment advice. Same danger asking your brother-in-law or co-worker for a stock tip. None of them do it professionally, so your amateur opinion is as good as theirs.

The internet brought people together online and in the 90’s, skilled traders and those looking to learn gathered from all over the world in AOL stock trading chat rooms and on Yahoo Finance message boards. Most people, even financial professionals, agree that the daily grind of stock trading is a lonely and stressful business. Rarely the high life portrayed in the media. With online trading forums like chat rooms and message boards, the collection of talent and research from dedicated investors helped a ton of people with a passion for the stock market to be able to earn a living through trading and investing. As online trading through brokers like E*Trade and TD Ameritrade made trading more and more accessible, sites like Jim Cramer’s RealMoney.com and Motley Fool’s forums allowed many individuals to become full time traders by learning from each other and sharing their market research and tough lessons. All this continued through the tech bubble that caused the Day Trading craze where amateurs tried their hand but did not sufficiently learn the skills needed to make stock trading their occupation.

Then, starting around 2005, the explosion of blogs and social media communication like twitter has spawned so many forms of publicly accessible stock market forums that anyone can find and learn just about anything about stock trading. Also, it is humanly impossible to keep up with all the real-time trading ideas and market calls that amateurs and professional traders alike share online. There are tons of daily online seminar classes (called webinars) for free or a class fee. These are hosted by both investment service companies like stock brokers and battle hardened investment coaches who have been around since the earliest AOL stock trading chat rooms and message boards.

The publicly available free resources for anyone in the world to learn and succeed in the stock market is endless. One word of caution is that there are also a lot of stock market educators who are actually just salespeople and marketers. They know enough to give you tips like Plumber Joe or your brother-in-law, but they’re as amateur as the next guy.