I keep losing money in stocks or mutual funds any suggestions?

Answer 1

The stock market is generally suited to long term investment plans, unless of course you want to become a day trader.

Anthony Robbins used to advocate a system called OPA (Outcome Focused, Purpose Driven, Action Plan) to help you reach your goals.

Anyway what that meant was you first of all had an Outcome (Let us say that your outcome is to grow $10,000 into $5Million over the next 15-20 years)

Purpose Driven. This is what will make you strive towards your goal, taking all actions, and not getting discouraged. (This is the dream. What will you do when/if you had $5M. This is what will kick start your massive action plan, this is what will give you the energy, the stamina, the belief that it is all worth while)

Finally, the massive action plan. What it will take for you to reach your goal, your $5M.

Having studied many investment funds, read books, and followed the financial press, you will rarely find anyone (who has a proven track record) that will tell you exactly what stocks to buy, when to buy them, and more importantly when to sell them. Most Mutual funds fail to beat the market average, so even if you chose Mutual Funds, there is no guarantee of success.

So what can you do? What is the best way to reach your goal of $5M balancing the amount of risk you are willing to take against the chances of reaching your goal within the next 15-20 years?

Unless you have a crystal ball, all investment systems will lose money some of the time, but a really good system will always have more ‘UP’ months than ‘Down’ months, and the ‘UP’ months will generally return more than the down months will lose.

The one system that I have seen, that has a past record, is achievable, and more importantly is easy to understand is the Stocks Monthly system.

Answer 2

You have been educating yourself with some books, and now you are keen to get started. After all time is money, and your money could do better than 5% p.a. if you find the right mutual fund. The fool web site has some interesting comments on mutual funds and offers a premium service which will cost you $30. The information there should be sufficient to push you in the right direction. Now mutual funds do come with risk, and they are not particularly exciting. You put your money in and after 20 years you may have a sizeable chunk of cash. However, you could decide to split your funds putting half in mutual funds and looking for a better return with the rest. Although this method will not appeal to everyone, a system that has returned over 49%p.a. is definitely worth a look. The Stocks Monthly System shows you exactly which stocks to Buy, When to Buy and When to Sell. You just follow the system. If you had done exactly this for the past 15 years $10,000 would have grown to $4M. Not bad for a simple easy to understand system.

Answer 3

Investing is counterintuitive. You must buy when prices are going down and sell when they go up. If you stick to quality and have patience you will prevail. Most investors panic when their investiments fall, then sell and lock in a loss. Be patient. If your reasons for buying in the first place are still valid, buy more and average down the price. If the reasons are no longer valid, take your loss and move on. Don't try to time the market, you cannot. Have an idea where your upper and lower limit is on each holding and stick to it. Keep emotion out of the equation and you'll do much better.

Warren Buffet said it best, "..the market is the best way to take money from the inpatient and give it to the patient."

Answer 4

Investing in "individual" stocks takes a lot of knowledge and practice; so I would not suggest doing this until you understand completely how the stock markets work.

Vanguard.com is ideal for long term investors who want to learn about mutual funds, index funds, and exchange-traded-funds (ETFs). Trading funds is less risky than trying to trade "individual" stocks.

Unless you plan on spending everyday of your life looking at stock charts trying to determine the best time to get in and out of "individual" stocks, I would look into some sort of fund.

Also be very careful about asking for stock tips online. Most are probably worthless or contain unethical motives. Do not fall for any Pump-and-Dump scams.

As far as books go, I actually started out with the Investing for Dummies books, and they definitely pushed me in the right direction. To many other books have their own agendas in my opinion.

The websites below all contain plenty of FREE information to get you started in the right direction.

Answer 5

If you are losing money it's because you are trading. If you buy and then HOLD quality stocks & mutual funds it is difficult to make less than 8-12% a year, and really quite easy to average 15%.

Stand still and quit trying so hard for six months, I suspect you'll make more!

Answer 6

Step back and think about when you bought the funds/stocks. Had they been going up for a long time? Did you hear about them on the evening news? Did you hang onto your losers wishing and hoping because you knew they would turn up?
Read up on technical analysis of the stock market. Check out Yahoo group ComputerProgramPicks. Best of luck. Having luck is executing with a prepared mind.

Answer 7

Here is the recipe for success:

1) Stop trading. It is a mugs game which only benefits the brokers.

2) Stop trying to beat the market. Academic, unbiased, research has consistently shown that it is a matter of luck.

3) Buy low charging index trackers (such as from Vanguard) for the US, UK and Asian markets and then sit back and rake in 8% -10% profits every year.

Answer 8

Buy in good companies and leave the stock alone for a year or two till you get some money saved up. Also just react to the numbers when doing trades, not your emotions.

Answer 9

Buy stocks in companys your know and use such as stores and car companys. Every time you buy from these stores you are increasing your stock intake. Take a look at CMG stock it has been fairing well for the last couple years.

Answer 10

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