Big mistakes in stock trading when I first started.

Hold onto a losing stock. Don't ever sell it, until it gets really cheap. This is also called investing.

Buy a penny stock. Watch it become even cheaper.

Hold on to a stock as it slides below your buy point. There's a very good chance, it'll never be that high again, or that break-even event might be months or years away.

Using IBD (Investor's business daily's) guidline to not sell a stock going down until it's lost 8% (hoping it will go back up), will lose you more money in the long run, and you will never make it back up.

Picking stocks on IBD can be a good thing to do, but it's the rare bird that will make you any money. Most of them that are rated A+ have already seen their glory days and are about to turn down. I used to subscribe and did extensive analysis on the stock prices in spread sheets on my laptop. Did this for a few years.

Buying stocks that just took a big hit in price. 90% of these will continue to surprise you at how cheap they can really get.

One more I just thought of, buying a low volume stock, that hardly anyone is buying. This one can be really hard to sell.

Last edited by CatBrat; 10/03/12 09:46 PM.