I know nothing about the Indian market, and little about the U.S., but here are some general tips that i use.
You need to know what your goals are, and what your risk tolerance is. these may not exactly align. if your goal is to make enough money in a year to retire, but you are not willing to take big risks, you have a problem.
INVESTING generally means long term - you are going to stick the money in something and leave it there for YEARS untouched.
SPECULATING is when you put money somewhere with the expectation you will sell in soon for a quick
profit.
speculating is much riskier, but can make you more money. investing is safer, but you (probably) won't make as much.
If you are investing, most of the research i've done points to an indexed mutual fund. this is a fund that is pegged to some index - in the U.S., we have the S&P 500, for example. There is no management needed, so there are now fees for it, and over any 20 year period, the market has gone up, so they are generally considered safe - but the return is usually low.
