OMG, here we go again (no offence intended!) My advice, seriously - scrap the game, start over, and pretend the stock exchange doesn't exist.
What you describe is a problem I've seen chronicled more than once - players figure out the easy cheat that the SE effectively is, and suddenly are rich but without a clue about what to do with their unearned scratch. Also, there is the great danger of skipping too much incremental development - put simply, you skip a lot of the fun. I've seen many a player (in both this game and others, in similar situations) get too many resources too quickly, get bored, and quit.
To put the SE in perspective: I truly believe that it is intended as a tool for veterans to short-cut the early development if they have something specific they want to try out without building up to it - but note that in order to decide to try something specific and exotic, you need to know enough about the game to be able to formulate such an experiment.
A brief example of extending a game's lifespan: I am currently re-playing X3 Reunion, which has no stock exchange (and if it did, I wouldn't use it.) I started with an M4 Buster - I earned enough by scavenging missiles and such, and making small trades, to get an M5 Discoverer and to trade in my M4 Buster to get me a TS Mercury - basically emulating a Humble Merchant start. I then used the Mercury to run various trades - a little bit of ECell trading, then mostly Silicon Wafers (can be VERY lucrative if you find trades at the extremes). Now, this combination of scout and freighter is very powerful, because I fly in the scout, quickly going from sector to sector looking for good trades and exploring in the meantime, and sending my freighter remotely to execute the trades and make money.
Now it's 5 days after start. In that time, I set up a silicon mine in Herron's Nebula, assigned my original freighter (which I gradually upgraded) to it as a CAG (Commercial AGent), while I carried on exploring and salvaging stuff. Once I could afford to, I set up a small Flower Farm in Greater Profit, as I spotted a major market niche there (lots of Sun Oil Refineries and Solar Power Plants, but nothing to bridge them - so in I stepped.) I then added 3 more to that one, turning it into a complex, and later another 2. Then I diversified, and added two large Dream Farms, because also there are gaps in the market there. Most recently, I built another silicon mine, on a rich asteroid in Antigone Memorial, and linked it to my original mine using a CLS (Commodity Logistics freighter.) My Teladi farm complex has 2 CAGs. And I am still flying around in my Discoverer, finishing up exploring the map in preparation for getting on with the campaign plot. Along the way I also found an abandoned M4 Pericles with decent guns and equipment, which I sold to help finance my developing economy. I've had ample opportunity to buy a bigger fighting ship, but am in no hurry, rather investing proceeds back into expanding my economy, which is now generating I think close to a million an hour - that's still peanuts, but it's constant "hands-free" income, which trickles in while I do whatever I feel like doing (which, at present, involves spending the cash to keep growing my industry.) Next up, I will add another 2 Flower Farms and 2 Dream Farms to my Teladi farm complex, then I will set up a modest solar power plant in Argon Prime, as there is an energy shortage in the surrounding area. At this point, my income will be accelerating all the time, so I will be able to invest in parallel in the business and in fighting ships - I may get a M3, or I may skip straight to a M6. In Reunion, there are no TMs - if there were, I would have invested in one ages ago, it's a real must-have in the early game, allowing one to carry a couple of fighters and decent freight capacity wherever one goes.
Now, how boring would it have been for me to skip over all that by click-click-clicking and suddenly having a ton of cash? It would render the game pointless to me.
Also, here's an important factor: if you skip the low and intermediate stuff, you don't get to learn important in-game skills, skills of all kinds: combat, economic, navigational - you name it.
You have been warned!
Good hunting
EDIT: PS: I was in such a hurry to reply to the OP (as you can see, I feel RATHER strongly about it!), that I briefly skimmed over the other two replies, but have now gone back to read them. You may notice that both others are also cautioning (though more tactfully than I
) to beware of easy money quick-starts...
EDIT2: X-Me, you have played Rebirth before, yes? Well, in X3 you don't get capital freighters (though some players do use TLs as such - but it's really tricky and inefficient within the game's structure.) Your typical freighter will cost about 1kk to fully outfit but considerably less than that to be decently functional, a large superfreighter can cost several times that, but never will you need tens of millions - there are no Lyramekrons or Scaldises here. The game has much finer "resolution", it is more fine-grained. In Rebirth, it's very fast and easy to make money, and it's just as easy to spend it. In X3, each credit is effectively worth more, on average. 100,000cr gets you one of the most expensive regular equipment items, a jumpdrive (Turbo Boosters are even more expensive, by a lot, but you can only use them in ships that you fly personally, so they are a specialty, long-term investment.)
