I disagree reading the last 10 pposts - it's more likely someone who did something without fully understanding the implications.

Good point, I just checked on the last few posts as well.

Ok, then I believe that you should not attempt trading on your own until you have a lot more information at your disposal to be able to make an educated choice. You can always choose to pick your stocks (and attempt to market time), or you can choose to invest regularly and dollar cost average into an index (or into specific stocks).

In either case, it sounds like you're just starting, so I'd say you should stick with automatic investing for now.