Sorry to hear of your misfortune Stocks168. If you're new to the...

Sorry to hear of your misfortune Stocks168. If you're new to the game then don't blame yourself, please. How can anyone who came into the share market within the last 12 months be smiling right now? The timing was all wrong and unfortunately you found that out the hard way. What we've endured was far worse than the crash of 1987, and is not too far off from the great one.

When you buy a stock you must have an escape plan. If you bought say BNB at 15.50, would you think at the time that it would be cool to be holding onto it when it's below 50 cents? Of course not! That's when you must have a stop loss in place without exception. The stop loss takes out the emotion of selling your precious shares, as you cannot predict a disaster, etc.

As they say it's never too high to sell for a profit and it's never too low to sell at a loss. You'll never become poor by taking profits, but you can very easily become bankrupt if you stubbornly refuse to sell at a loss. Selling your shares at a loss is often associated with the feelings of failure and rejection. That is normal but this emotion must be controlled or it will be the end of you.

Selling at a loss is normal and part of a healthy share trading system. You have a 50/50 chance of picking the right stock in the right climate. If in a short time you realise the stock you bought is not behaving to plan then you must cut your losses and get out.

If a big announcement is made and the stock rallies hard stay calm. Have a look at the chart - if the price was steadily building up in price just prior to the announcement then it would be safe to assume the news was built into the price, such as a take over bid.

May I suggest you get a book by Stan Weinstein called 'How to profit in a bull and bear market'. Written in 1988 it's still held in high regard by many experts. Trust me.