The Internet has opened up a world of opportunity to the properly trained stock marketer.

However, as many an amateur has learned through quite tangible losses, just because something becomes more available does not necessarily mean that one should immediately access it.

The stock market is the single most unforgiving, Machiavellian profession one can possibly undertake. On the same token, the stock market properly used has the undeniable advantages of limitless potential, complete freedom, and the irresistible satisfaction of beating the odds and coming out a winner.

No longer are the stock brokers in the multinational corporations the only ones with access to the information to become a successful day trader. Or swing trader. Or long term investor. The information that could make anyone rich is all out on the Internet for everyone to see and use.

However, it is the filtering and the interpretation of that information which separate the winners from the losers. And in a zero sum game like the stock market, filtering and interpretation are all that matter.

A trading education is what the average online investor is lacking. Maybe he or she reads a couple of million to one shot books by people who got lucky playing it "by their gut" or inadvertently coming out a winner because they placed an all out bet on a small company that went on to become a behemoth. However, the days of Microsoft making millionaires out of investors are over. They are now a known quantity. Reading the good fortune of investors from the past does not translate into your success. Every path is different. Every investor must learn the fundamentals so as to recognize his or her own opportunity when it comes.

If you have ever wanted to know how to become a successful trader for free, there are a plethora of free trading webinars and free trading education courses online, for which you will not pay the first bit.

Paying to learn how to trade the stock market, for the rookie, is a mistake. The process is to learn as much as one can for free, get into the market, make the inevitable mistakes, re evaluate the information that you took in at the start, tweak your performance, and then, only after he or she has had some successes and truly understands the flow of the stock market and the lingo of those who participate in it, will paid training be of any use.

Until then, find as many free resources as you can and paper trade every day with diligence. Then when you think that you are ready (and you won't be, but that is just part of the process), get into the market with both guns blazing.