olumatthias: you've got some good advice up here. alanbow's comment (#6) is good for researching what you're buying into. The online items below could also be useful; they're booklets, and thus short, but you just may find them useful:
The Basics for Investing in Stocks
Five Keys to Investing Success
Mutual Funds
And, of course, the free ebook from this website (thought slightly outdated, in the sense of needing some update) is very good for the NSE.
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