stock watching vs investing

I see WAY too many people on HC posting every single day about their stocks and saying 'What's happening? Oh no, the sky is falling, I'd better sell, panic, panic, blah, blah, blah...."

If you are looking to make a lot of money quickly in the markets as a day, week, or short term trader, MOST of you will fail and will lose money.

If you do some research and pick companies that are fundamentally sound, have product, have good management, etc, etc, and take a LONG TERM view you will likely make a profit, but patience is key.

To those people posting constantly on HC like some kind of manic-depressive who has forgotten to take his meds - take some time out from watching the market and the SP every single minute or hour of every day and go and read some literature about investing. You will find that almost EVERY single book contains the most important thing you need to know:

"People who invest and hold for the long term will see a positive return on their investment - sometimes this can take a year, two, five, 10 years - you just have to be patient"

Looking at it another way - if you buy a house you expect that over time that house will increase in value. The key is "over time". Do you buy it and expect to sell it a week or a month later for a 10% profit? Of course not. Do you get a valuation done on your house every day or every week to see whether it's gone up or down? Of course not.

So WHY do this with the SP of a company? If anything you should be even MORE patient and detached when it comes to investing in a company as opposed to a house. The house just sits there and does NOTHING - it (usually) increases in value simply because land is finite and people breed therefore over time there will be demand for land.

A company on the other hand is anything BUT inactive. It takes time to locate resources, obtain permits, drill, extract, reach production, etc, etc. So many people on HC act as if these companies SP's should sky rocket on any given day or week. Simply expecting or "willing" it to happen isn't going to make it happen, and it leads to panic and disappointment and then we see all these posts on HC whinging and moaning about it. Get a life, find something else to do, and just let the people who manage and work for the companies you've invested in do their jobs. Rome wasn't built in a day. Why do so many expect that their investment fortunes / profits will be?