Everybody wants to make more money. You might be saving up to start your own business or to buy a new house, but when you've got a long way to go, placing your money in a savings account that only accumulates pennies in interest is not the fastest way to reach your goal. In order to speed up the saving process, you can take on a little extra risk and play the stock market in order to increase the amount of return you might see on your money. Here are a few ways to play the stock market.

If you're a stock market newbie or you don't have a firm grasp on what's not and what's not in the business world, you can always hand over your money to someone who does and have them play the market for you. People who play the stock market with clients' money are called stock brokers, and there are several major franchises in Canada that you can sign up with. There are also independent brokers, but always make sure you vet your broker carefully before you hand over your money.

When you've got a stock broker working for you, you have the advantage of his or her knowledge and experience, but you will be paying for the privilege. As an investor, you get to determine where your money will go and what level of risk you are willing to accept. You can either decide on the minutiae of which companies to buy stock in yourself or have your broker put together a portfolio at his or her discretion and feed the proceeds into your private commercial mortgage.

If you're going to trade stocks on your own without the assistance of a broker, research is essential. You'll have to be very knowledgeable about the business world - know which companies are doing well, which ones are not, and most importantly, which companies are likely to do better in the future. In this way you can buy stocks you think will make you money and create your own Canadian ETF rather than letting the broker build it for you.

Most people who play the stock market are looking to make money in the long term. There is, however, another type of trading known as day trading, where you attempt to make money off the rises and falls in a company's stock price during a single day. You might pick up some commodity funds and hope they go up, or simply follow the crowd. Either way it's very stressful and time consuming.