Coming to a bookstore near you: How To Make A Zillion Dollars In the Stock Market By Investing 15 Seconds Of Your Time.

We are constantly bombarded by preposterous, nonsensical get-rich-quick schemes that try to convince people that investing is easy. Sadly, many people still look at investing as a casual, fly-by-night exercise.

Easy investing?

That's an oxymoron if ever I've heard one.

If I've learned anything about trading the financial markets, it is that there is nothing - absolutely nothing - easy about investing.

To put it succinctly, this is a hard game. If you think tracking this strange and wonderful animal called the stock market is easy, I can show Exhibit A - my dead, quote-clicking mouse hand.

People are constantly badgering me for hot tips that will make them rich overnight.

I have only two hot tips.

One, don't ask columnists, bartenders and taxi drivers for hot tips (or, for that matter, many stockbrokers) - and don't give out hot tips either, as they can be hazardous to one's health.

Two, if you're planning on managing your own investment portfolio, you'd better be willing to put your nose to the grindstone, read every investment book you can get your hands on that is more about reality than fantasy, and, most importantly, you'd better be willing to invest a ton of time.

Half-assed doesn't cut it in this game. If you're unwilling to pay the price, you may be better off hiring a competent professional to manage your portfolio and even that deserves some due diligence.

The stock market is not something to fool around with. It is a dangerous beast with wild mood swings and it deserves your utmost respect and undivided attention.

If you think stock-picking is a snap, talk to a bleary-eyed fund manager with 5,000 stocks on his radar screen.

Some of the great fund managers such as Canadian star Eric Sprott of Sprott Asset Management invest virtually all their waking hours into staying ahead of the pack, and it seems that's what it takes to be successful.

Some money managers work ridiculously long hours and still can't even beat the low-cost index funds.

I shudder when I hear money managers pitch "sleep-at-night" stocks.

Sleep at night? I think sleep-at-night stocks are figments of wild imaginations. Seems I remember people referring to Nortel Networks (TSX:NT) and Enron (ticker symbol deceased) as sleep-at-night stocks before those companies became their worst nightmares.

Some investment experts still subscribe to the old buy-and-hold theory in which investors are encouraged to buy equities, sock 'em away and forget about them.

Certainly, it has worked for Warren Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.A), but even Buffett is finding out that times are changing and is becoming more active as a trader.

In these times when markets run on information overload and even large-cap stocks ride the rollercoaster, buy and hold doesn't seem to make a lot of sense anymore.

Pro trader Michael Parness frowns on buy and hold in his book, Rule The Freakin' Markets. His credo about stocks is "use 'em and abuse 'em."

Today's investors are paying more and more attention to technical analysis and charting systems - so does it really make sense to hold a stock that has broken into a downtrend when you can take your profits and reinvest them in another stock with a more favourable outlook, such as one that is embarking on an uptrend phase?

Think of how much money you may be leaving on the table when you sit on the sidelines and watch a stock's chart break, making it vulnerable to a violent correction.

Yet, as long as people buy investment books with eye-catching titles, many will still buy into get-rich-quick schemes.

According to MoneySense magazine, you can outperform in the financial markets by spending 15 minutes a year on your portfolio. MoneySense bills the 15-minute-a-year portfolio as the Couch Potato Strategy and claims it actually works, and maybe it does.

Personally, once I saw the reference to couch potato, I wasn't interested in reading further. There's no free lunch in this game so, if you're a couch potato, forget the market.

You want something fast and easy? Go to McDonald's for a Happy Meal.

* NEW YEAR, OLD STORY: The broad-based energy story that dominated 2004 refuses to run out of gas and is showing signs it could repeat as the hot investing theme of '05.

In the first six weeks of the year, 13 of the 20 biggest winners on the TSX were energy-related plays, including nine oil and gas stocks.

The other four big energy movers were uranium stocks, three of which were in the top six with enormous gains of 50 to 75 per cent.

A tech stock, Mindready Solutions (TSX:MNY), has been the runaway leader year to date with a gain of 169.7 per cent. Southern Cross Resources (TSX:SXR), a play on skyrocketing uranium prices, has been the second-hottest stock with a 75.4-per-cent gain.

The big difference this year is in where oilpatch investors are looking for the action.

Last year, it was the exotic international plays that stole the show. This year, the buzzword is oilsands as more and more investors focus on the mammoth resources in Alberta.

One company that is garnering plenty of attention is Calgary-based UTS Energy (TSX:UTS), which is up 63.2 per cent based on its 100-per-cent ownership of the Fort Hills Oil Sands Project.

As U.S. investors finally catch on to the vast resources of the Alberta oilsands, this could well become the dominant investment story of the year.

* JURY STILL OUT ON STAMPEDER PREZ: Many in the Calgary media have embraced new Calgary Stampeders president and co-owner Ted Hellard as a great saviour of football in the city, citing Hellard's success in building Internet company Critical Mass.

Perhaps,these media cheerleaders have forgotten one particular history lesson: Successful entrepreneurs moving into sports ownership/management is often a recipe for disaster.

Hellard is a visionary who may get ahead of himself - and other members of the Stamps' brass. In an interview with the Edge four years ago, Hellard said his greatest lesson as a business leader has been in learning to be patient "and letting others come forward with the skills and talent."

Only time will tell if Hellard has to learn that lesson all over again at the Stamps' helm.

HOT STOCK: Augusta Resource Corp.
TSXV:ARS $2.47 Up $1.19 (+93.7%) on 3 million shares (based on Canadian stocks over $1,for week of Feb. 14-18)
Oil exploration stocks continued to sizzle. When Toronto-based Augusta said it would proceed with production testing after completing drilling of its North Dakota well, speculators were betting big time on the possibility of a major oil discovery. Augusta's partner in the joint-venture project, Westchester Resources (TSXV:WSR), spiked 102.1 per cent. Together, Augusta and Westchester own 50 per cent of the well in partnership with U.S.-based Oil for America.

COLD STOCK: Wi-Lan Inc.
TSX:WIN $1.07 Down 30 cents (-21.9%) on 968,200 shares (based on Canadian stocks over $1, week of Feb. 14-18)
Wi-Lan's gruesome five-year chart is enough to make a grown wireless speculator cry and there aren't any clear signs the bloodletting is over. Five years ago, Wi-Lan was the coolest wireless stock in Canada as it skyrocketed to the $90 range at the height of dot-com mania. More recently, stock in the Calgary broadband wireless company has plunged about 75 per cent from its 52-week high and hit a 52-week low as jittery stockholders dumped shares ahead of quarterly financial results.

(Gyle Konotopetz can be reached at gyle@businessedge.ca)