Most people only know of one way to make money in the stock market. That way is to find a company you like for whatever reason, buy their stock and hold it until you retire.

If you know of other ways to make money in the stock market then you most likely know more than the average stock market investor.

I'm going to share 5 unique ways to invest in the stock market and hopefully this will either reinforce what you already know or expose you to some new methods of investing.

Buy Stocks That Pay Dividends

Publicly traded companies use dividends as a way to reward their shareholders. Dividends are usually based on the amount of shares you own in a particular company.

For example a company may pay $0.20 per share so the more shares you own, the bigger your payout will be.

Not all companies pay dividends so if you wanted to take advantage of this strategy you would have to do some stock screening.

Buy Defensive Stocks

Defensive stocks usually fall into certain industries. These would be industries that sell products that people need to survive.

What this means is that no matter how weak an economy gets these stocks would still be able to weather the storm.

For this reason they are considered defensive, as they defend your portfolio against a weak economy.

Some industries would be food, utilities, gold, silver, and some pharmaceutical companies.

Defensive stocks are a good way to go because they also do well in a good economy.

Buy Blue Chip Stocks

This is also considered "value investing" in the stock market. Blue chip stocks are all about companies that have a strong balance sheet.

Most of the thirty stocks in the DOW jones industrial index are considered blue chip or value stocks.

Although the DOW is only made up of around 30 stocks it is meant to represent the overal market. Because of this, only the best stocks make it to the list.

Start with the thirty stocks on the DOW, and do some stock screening from there to find the best of the best.

Note: Blue chip stocks usually have a big market capitalization, meaning a lot of shares outstanding.

Short Selling

Short selling is not a commonly known trading method but it is very popular among savvy investors.

Short selling is a way by which you sell a security first, then buy back later at a lower price.

So with short selling you are still buying low and selling high, but the order is just reversed in that you sell first and buy later.

Short selling is an excellent way to make money if you think that the stock market (or even an individual stock) is going down.

Trading Options

This last one is my personal favorite and is my primary way of making money inthe stock market.

Stock options give you the right to buy and sell stocks at a certain price no matter what happens to the stock itself.

In other words if you owned a $45 option on xyz stock you would be able to buy or sell xyz at $45 no matter what price xyz was trading at.

If xyz was trading at $25 dollars, you could still sell it at $45.

People buy and sell options just like they buy and sell stocks, I use various options trading techniques when investing in the stock market.

I have found that learning how to trade options is truly one of the most lucrative ways to make money in the stock market.