sj22Trading is a sucker's game. Very very few people make money...

sj22

Trading is a sucker's game. Very very few people make money from it. You have to be GOOD and LUCKY.

Ask yourself - hedge funds who have access to the best minds, insider info, technology beyond our imagination etc. are losing money and closing left and right. What hope does the individual investor have other than getting lucky?

My tip to you is stop trying to TIME the market, if you must invest.

Try and PRICE the market - i.e. is a stock overvalue or undervalued.

Stick to the top 20 or top 50 DIVIDEND paying stocks, and utilise a small amount of margin debt (no more than 30%).

Diversify into 5-10 stocks and get to know them well, and don't step outside of them unless you have very good reason. Make sure each stock yields atleast 4%.

This way you can take advantage of the tax benefits of investing (interest payments and dividend imputation credits are tax deductible) and hopefully in time you will also experience capital growth.

Stop trying to chase 2 baggers or 3 baggers or whatever. If your portfolio goes up 10% in a year, you are doing extremely well. Just buy quality, when the market has gone down a lot or when something gets incredibly cheap (for example BHP or WPL right now, not banks as they are very expensive .. just an example).

And most of all, be patient. The number of times that amazing opportunities presented themselves to me but I didn't have any dry powder boggles the mind.

Also, I did lose atleast half my money in the last 5 years, so you are not alone. Live, learn and move on. Don't keep doing something that obviously doesn't work .. that's what insanity is :)

I hope the next 5 years are kinder to you and to us all.