I feel for your loss and wish you the best in recovering your...

I feel for your loss and wish you the best in recovering your money. Kudos also for being honest and open about your losses. However, I do see things differently with some of your advice and you appear not to practice what you preach - lines two and four say have patience with a stock and not to sell when oversold, but you finish with "brb 6 months, investing in lithium"? Some others:

1. How do you know if a share is overhyped? 88E for example hit 4 cents after IW1 results - 800% increase in days - some would have said that was overhyped and then it went on to a peak of 8 cents. There is such a thing as missing a train.

5. **** the computers. If you're truly long terming you remain unaffected - it is your own game plan. No amount of HFT computing power in the world can significantly alter the fundamentals of a succeeding or failing company which ultimately decides the value of your portfolio. If you're short terming, don't follow the market at all. The market movement is what HFTs prey on. Follow the wave of HFTs and go against the market (think we actually agree on this one?). Made thousands off 88E a year ago by doing the exact opposite of what the market was doing on any given day, before it became too volatile to reliably do this.

6. Volume too easily manipulated by said brilliant minds and computers. Just one of the tools used by "them"...

7. Not always guaranteed - you can get caught out by this quite easily, like when 88E began its descent from the last time it was 6 cents.

8. TA and chart patterns on a spec stock is hoodoo. If it were a reliable predictor everyone would do it but they don't because it isn't. The closest you'll get for 88E is the tendency of people to ramp prior to news and sell on it, but that's hardly analysis and doesn't work on those rare days where the news is exceptional and market open is high and climbs.

I have only two big rules myself and like you they too came from years of wins/losses and one damned GFC, but I've definitely been luckier and since implementing these two rules I've only ever turned in a capital gain at EOFY (half luck):

1. Never invest money you can't afford to lose
2. Never sell at a loss

Simple as that. Keeping these in mind puts you ahead of so many emotional half wit investors. 90% of your decision making becomes unemotional and automatic, and the only way you will lose your money is if the company actually goes under or you break one of these rules. The rest of it is a matter of getting your buy/sell timing right which is a combination of luck + knowledge.

Anyone who tells you there is a guaranteed way to make money on the sharemarket is full of **** or a con artist trying to flog you some shares - plenty of books written by stock market gurus on how to win like them, because the losers don't write books on it and if they do they're not read by anyone. Nothing is guaranteed here, which is why I don't buy the TA bull****. So much of this stuff is straight up luck; gambling on decisions made by others that you have little control over. At best you can use knowledge to increase the odds in your favour and assist your timing with the buy and the sell.

Sorry for the late night rant!!! Again, good luck with your other investment and hope to see you in 88E again next year.