Hello - I am new at this - and I am not doing so good right now - even tho, I do believe in

some of my LOSING stocks, so I will hold onto them - as I am losing TOO much now - I will

wait for them to come back up - BUT THAT IS MY QUESTION - now they are going DOWN< DOWN>

DOWN.  Almost to nothing.  What does happen to them?   Do they eventually go to nothing, or do

they eventually come up.  I guess I need to learn about that STOP thing, so I don't lose EVERYTHING!

I would appreciate ANY HELP.  THANKS!

It sounds like many other people don't believe in the companies you bought. Why do you believe in them?

Dude, you sound like you don't have a clue. Read some books or something.
You can also learn by trading (and reading the news). Just make sure you risk a minimal amount of money since you will be losing a lot. In a year or two you might learn enough to trade with more money.
Hope this helps. Sorry but this is a tough business.

i found this software that evaluates stocks in a very accurate non-emotional way and its right on but the name of the game is patience and to try to keep the trades to a minimum so that the commision won't eat your profits, if you would like more info email me shmulis@gmail.com.  good luck!

Sounds like you bought a bunch of CHEAP stocks, like <$5.00... or under $1.00 even. That's like playing the lottery. If you're starting out, I suggest not buying anything under say... $20 bucks.

Buy some big companies, and look at the ratings. Use your resources, even the mainstream ones like finance.yahoo.com, finance.google.com, reuters, etc. Check out the ratings, check out the yahoo message boards on specific stocks.

And if you want to bet check out americanbulls.com, it shows you what $100 turned into through their automated candlestick analysis.

 

As for your losing stocks, if you  TRULY believe in them, then DON'T get psyched out by the market. Hold onto them, because if you believe in them then they're bound to go up, the market will catch up to their solid foundation.

This isnt the bull market of a year ago.... you need to tell us what stocks youre in so we can help. i was up 20% in december and then went crashing down 33%. you cant invest like a bull in a bear market. i am finally back to where i was when i started. go for safe haven stocks. its better to lose 30% than to be stubborn and lose 75%. constantly be on the look out for news on your stocks. I look every weekday for news and once prior to opening to the stock market on monday (sunday night). the only sane investing you can do without doing research AFTER BUYING is when youre using mutual funds. if you dont have the time please do mutual funds! I myself havent faced a market like this as ive only been trading for a year so now im only half invested. i am waiting for bargain prices on stocks because the sun will aways come out tomorrow and there will be better days.

 

NOTE: IF Y OU WANT TO GAMBLE A LITTLE.. ONLY PUT A SMALL PERCENTAGE IN RISKY STOCKS! SURE IT MAY BE FUN TO WIN A BUNCH OF MONEY... BUT YOURE A HECK OF A LOT MORE LIKELY TO LOSE IT THAN TO WIN IT AND LOSING SUCKS!

tjkrid17:

Hello - I am new at this - and I am not doing so good right now - even tho, I do believe in

some of my LOSING stocks, so I will hold onto them - as I am losing TOO much now - I will

wait for them to come back up - BUT THAT IS MY QUESTION - now they are going DOWN< DOWN>

DOWN.  Almost to nothing.  What does happen to them?   Do they eventually go to nothing, or do

they eventually come up.  I guess I need to learn about that STOP thing, so I don't lose EVERYTHING!

I would appreciate ANY HELP.  THANKS!

You've got to start reading books by Benjamin Graham. You also have to learn how to read a balance sheet and cash-flow statement such that you can decipher whether it is a beaten up stock or a beaten up company. Most of all, you need to know how to read a 10-K.

When stocks go down, it can be a good thing. I don't like penny stocks because they are highly volatile and you don't know what you're getting (in most cases). In order to be able to evaluate a stock, I think it needs to be registered with an exchange and not be on the OTCBB or pink-sheets unless a 10-K is available which usually exists on the company's website.

I've lost chalk-loads of money on certain stocks too; it happens. Some stocks are truly losers, while some stocks are hit hard because of the sector their in. There was one stock that I invested about $100 in that I sold immediately when it lost 40%. On the other hand, there was a stock that I've held when it lost 45% of its value. It is all company-specific and without the ability to evaluate companies, your merely guessing that the company will recover.

For instance, I had been predicting that VMWare since the 1/3 drop in price was an excellent company to buy. In contrast, last year, it was a terrible stock to buy. What happened? This year it received a large influx of cash from its operations. When that happens, it eliminates the guessing.

---

Aqua

I would suggest that you enter a stop-loss order to limit your losses.

Ride your winners as long as you can --- don't get greedy.

Dump your losers before it is too late.

 

Just because a company has good earnings and looks good on paper --- does not

mean that stock will be a winner. There are no guarantees in the market. There are

short sellers, market manipulators.

Ride the winners and dump your losers .

Sure go ahead and hold onto those losing stocks ... lol. Rember Bear Stearns and many others. Unbelievable losing strategy that you have to hold onto losing stocks.

hy don't buy cheap price stocks, if you lucky you make money, if you don't you lose all of it, I can give you a few good stocks here, I trade. (AKS----CSIQ----FWLT-----COP ) all of these stock are making money for me.

Tjkrid17, you need to set up a Zecco profile and share your trading data. If we could click on your profile and see what companies you own, we could offer better advice.

Generally if a company I like a lot starts dropping, I buy more. I had a lot of success with that method earlier this year when the stock market dropped a lot; now the stock prices are back up and I'm in the money. But if the companies are doomed, it may be better to cut your losses and free up that capital for wiser investments in the future. At least you can take the capital loss on your taxes . . .

YOU have to decide what you want to do. Nobody has answers for you.
We can all give some free advice but it is up to you to figure out what you want to do. This requires serious commitment.
You will not figure this out in one day or by reading some majic book or buying some majic software. It is a job and as with any job, to be really good at it, you need to be dedicated and passionate and even then it takes a long time and doesn't always work, depending on your luck, personality, etc.

I would:
1) Sell everything and stop trading first. Get yourself emotionally disconnected from your losses. Spend some money on vacation or something, if you must.
2) Ask yourself if investing is something you want to dedicate some major time of your life to. If you feel this is so, ask yourself WHY? Why not spend that time doing something else instead? Give yourself a few weeks to think this over. If this is really something you feel strongly about, then proceed to the next step. Otherwise enjoy your freed up time and money on your family, job, hobbies, etc.
3) Read, read, read. Start with theory. Read everything academia has produced in the last century. There isn't much there and much of that is wrong, but you have to read it all and understand it all. Then read some gurus and stories about them. Think Buffer, Soros, Rogers, etc. Then go back to the academia. Then back again. In other words, get familiar with theory and practice.
4) At this point you should know enough to find out how and where to get more information on just about anything related to investments. You should start getting your own ideas. If not, if this all turned out to be boring stuff, go back to step 2.
5) At this point you should either have strong ideas of your own that you would want to invest in or you would become cynical about the possibility of success playing with your own money and you would want to become a middle man and play with other people's money. In the latter case, you know everything you need to know, go ahead.
6) If you still feel that you can make it as an investor, TEST your ideas first. Try to generate many scenarios, write them down and see how they play out. When you trade for real you might want to do this as well, at least for a while.
7) When you are old and rich, write a couple of books about how you made your billions.

if you decide that you don't want to be an investor you can either hire someone to manage your money or invest money passively in diversified indexes and investment grade debt like municipal bonds, treasuries, etc. you have to understand that if you go this route you would be lucky if you could beat "real" inflation, whatever that means to you.
if this is not good enough, just spend your money instead.

Thanks for all the posts. I found them all very helpful!

Averagebum

tjkrid17:

Hello - I am new at this - and I am not doing so good right now - even tho, I do believe in

some of my LOSING stocks, so I will hold onto them - as I am losing TOO much now - I will

w