I also started with $10000 in July last year. Have given e*trade $2500 in commissions and am currently up 60%. after expenses. I take note of only a few people on HC mostly those mentioned above. I have lost a bit by doing that i must admit but the shares I hold have good long term potential. I am only interested in gold, base metals and rare earths as i worked as a surveyor and did geostats work in the 1980's. I don't know enough about oil, gas and coal to be confident in buying shares.
Use stop losses but be careful. I have had stop losses set at 7-10% on several shares have been taken out only to go back on the same day. I guess if you can monitor the stock market each day and i mean in front of the computer for most of the day then don't use a stop loss. If you work and can only check occasionally say at lunch time then you must use stop losses. I learned this lesson the hard way several times
I read announcements from the asx, try to determine the likely impact on the share price ie. up (very hard to do) and on rare occasions buy. It worked with RMS and GOR
Don't forget the tax implications. Shares sold with a profit within 12 months are taxed at your marginal tax rate. Shares sold after 12 months the profit is discounted by 50% and then taxed ie capital gains. Losses are treated as a loss of course.
I check this site simply to see what he is doing http://www.tom-tradingdaily.blogspot.com/
