Patience is the rarest commodity on Wall Street and therefore, the most highly rewarded.
Most investors sell too soon, both when a stock is going up or when it has temporary down draft.
When you understand your investments, your knowledge will be the armor you need against the overwhelming urge to follow the crowd.
Once you embark on the adventure of owning stock, stick with it until it has proven your assumptions wrong.
If a stock is going up, don't be anxious to sell it. Look at the growth of the earnings. If they're going up faster than the stock, the stock might be cheap. If you have a good stock, hang on to it.
A good company will have a bad quarter once in a while. Sometimes a new research project doesn't work out and needs to be written off. That will hurt earnings for the quarter.
The traders will dump the stock and move on.
The investors will look behind just the income numbers to see what caused the shortfall and if it's a one time event, will buy more of the stock as it's going down.
Because it's so important, I'll repeat it. Be patient.
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