Hi Frisco,
I hope you got the free e-book on this site when you joined, I will suggest you read it again and again, it will be good for gaining the basic knowledge.
If you are into this long term, then buy the established stocks especially when they are doing IPOs, eg FBN which is out tomorrow, Dangote anything when it comes up, GTB, zenith Insurance (UNIC, NFI, linkage assurance are good cheap ones now as they will grow soon).
However if you want to get into short term trading, may be paper trading for a while will be good.
Look at a stock you like and thing will do well based on fundamentals and technical analysis, then get a paper and trade on them without real money, see how you perform over time then start using real money.
Use this website to look at the trend
http://www.firstglobalselect.com/scr...vcountry-id=55
I hope this helps