It later closes three cents higher than that. Should we get in? Not necessarily. Because as the candlestick showed us, even though it had a five cent swing from the day before, a long wick was created. This meant that it went even higher then it eventually settled on. That tells us that the pressure to go higher wasn’t strong enough. We will put it on our watch list, and keep a keen eye on it.

Not working on your education – This should go without saying but many folks try to start investing in real estate after watching some 2 hour infomercial on late night TV. Sure, you don’t need to go overboard and study without ever taking action on what you’ve learned but you also don’t need to spend thousands of dollars before you have your first deal under your belt but you should be diligent and continue to study. Study but then take MASSIVE ACTION!

Focus on the future. Don’t dwell on past mistakes, and don’t get too caught up in checking prices every hour. It’s important that you stay focused on long term performance when stock investing. I’ve certainly had my share of bad days, but my Emerging Growth newsletter has beat the market 4-to-1 nearly every year in the 28 years I’ve been writing it. Investors that work day-in and day-out in the stock market develop a serious case of tunnel vision when it comes to picking stocks. Remember, what happened in the last market cycle won’t necessarily apply to the next. Don’t lose sight of the broad market when stock investing.

The truth is that the market is unpredictable and no one can truly determine when it’s at a peak of or is about to shoot back up. This is the same with any stock. Because of this, we can deduce that the market is volatile and constantly moving upwards or downward. The only way to profit from such an environment is to be invested long term, ready to ride out the rough patches in order to reap benefits later.

There are dozens of quick-read investment primers that can do the job. My own “investing 101,” Mike Piper’s “Investing Made Simple,” Eric Tyson’s “Investing for Dummies” — these are all straightforward lessons on how to invest wisely. Reliable financial planners are also available but research carefully before choosing one.

For a while there it was taking a good amount of searching to find good houses to flip so people started upgrading perfectly good homes. When that happens you know it is time to get out. The market was just too overloaded.

Let’s say that you have ,000 and you invest it in a stock. It doesn’t really matter what the investment vehicle, just that you are investing in something you expect to receive a positive return on.