Going against the crowd and trading through bottom picking is...

Going against the crowd and trading through bottom picking is certainly a strategy. However those who tend to be successful at this approach are usually professionals who possess information that the rest of the market don't have, or have been trained to develop and apply sophisticated valuation models (dcf, multiples, whatever it may be) and trade with a full understanding of the expected return of their investment and risk taken to get that return.

As for the rest of us, and those who have a job and a family and don't have hours and hours to devote to the stock market, we look at the charts to provide an indication of sentiment and likely future direction of a stock. Barring the short term, stocks do not move completely randomly. A quick look at any chart and for the most part it's fairly obvious they move in trends, both up and down.

If one knows absolutely nothing about a company, he can probably still do ok simply by trading in the direction of the market (not that I would advocate this but I want to make a point) I.e. buying stocks that are rising and selling / shorting when they are falling. Look at how pdn rose from 0.007 to over 10 dollars over a 5 year period from 2002 to 2007. Had an investor bought these shares AT ANY TIME during this period solely because the stock was Ian positive uptrend, he would have immediately profited.

From 2007 to 2012, pdn, and bmn, have both lost over 80 percent of their value. This is quite a large period. 5 years! If at any time during this period had a pdn investor recognised the shift in sentiment staring at him right in the face and sold out, he would have limited losses. Alternatively if a new investor had shorted the stock at any time during this period, he would have profited.

Moral of the story.. You have a much higher probability of executing a winning trade (both buy And sell decisions) by following what the market is currently doing rather than attempting to be that super smart person that 'picks' the bottom and the top.

There is no implied contradiction in my comment. My advice is to base you buy and sell decisions on the information the chart is telling you. Unfortunately 'the crowds' don't usually do this, by either trading against the trend (e.g. Holding on to a stock when it's falling as per your comments), emotionally holding on to losing positions etc, or buying falling stocks if for no other reason.. Which you might be doing.

As for it 'being my method and that is fine' I'd like to say its not just my method. Diversification, and correct asset allocation is something drilled into anybody studying finance (I have both a finance and an engineering degree) as the only repeatable successful way of making money from the markets in the long term.