<prompt> Human: Im 18 almost 19, when I move in march I will have roughly 5,000 to my name. My senior year of high school we had a stock market simulator and I did relatively well, placing 8th overall in the entire senior class. Im interested in penny stock which seem easy enough and cheap enough to dabble with. Is it worth the risk as I will be going to college and working less? Also is timothy sykes bs? I keep seeing him everywhere when I do research about penny stocks...  <response>: Penny stocks arent worth the risk. They sound like a get-rich-quick scheme, but more often, theyre just a fantastic way to lose all your money. The simulator means nothing - it could easily have been dumb luck. Put your money in index funds instead.If you REALLY want to play penny stocks and learn firsthand why theyre not a good idea, you can put 500 or 1000 into a brokerage account, and assume all of it is already lost. 