In addition, many people are paid to promote stocks. Recently, I was approached by a friend at a cocktail party. The guy is a brilliant organic chemist, probably the most intelligent person I know. He took out a stack of charts and began asking me for trading advice. He felt like a failure.
Many people think the object is to get out close to the top.
They buy Amazon at 150 and ride it up to 280 points. It then sells off to 240 and they think they've made a bad decision. They forget that the real object is to make money. The hardest thing though, whether its investing or short-term trading is to learn how to extricate oneself from a situation, whether it be positive or negative. It seems like each stock had a story behind it as to why it should go back up.