When you start to play the stock market game, there are many mistakes that you are going to make as you learn how the stock market operates. Some of the mistakes that you would have made you may be able to avoid if you are prepared for them. That way you will not have to worry about being in that position and how you are going to get out of it. The first thing you are going to need to become aware of is if you are an average person you probably do not have nearly as much training as the seasoned professionals who do this for a living. Even if you plan on making this your living these guys have nothing better to do than watch stocks all day and plan to buy when the stocks go low. Experience is important in this game. One way to combat this may be to take an online course which will help you learn how to become better at the game. If this sounds fishy, which a lot are, the next best thing is to simply continue to play in the market until you feel that you have enough experience.
If you have experience in trading one particular type of stock, do not think that this will automatically give you experience in another area. Both areas are separate of each other and behave differently. You will have to think of yourself as being a newbie when you start in a new style of trading.
Another mistake that people do is anticipating results and missing the time in which they should have sold their stock. Some people think that when a stock hits a high mark that the stock will continue to rise and they can make more money. Sometimes that happens but not always. You need to look at the past trends that have occurred with that stock or with similiar ones like it. If it seems like there is a good chance that the market is not going to continue up you will want to sell your stock. Don't worry about having missed a crucial time if when you sell it you notice that it is just starting to go on the decline. It is better to make any profit than to have a loss.
If the stock goes further down though, I would recommend holding on to it. Observe the trends that happened before to see when you can anticipate a turn-around. The majority of stocks that drop are going to rebound unless there is a hard economic hurt on the entire market. If that happens, there's a lot more to worry about.
Another mistake is to fall for the gimmicks that other people may pull on you. This one is harder to avoid because of human nature in general. Some people will try to convince you to buy penny stocks because they believe that if you buy a penny stock then you will be able to increase your profits dramatically. Don't fall for this. If a company was doing so well, it wouldn't need to offer its stock at a penny. People would have already bought up as much as they could or the stock would have reversed. Usually these companies are the ones on the brink of being closed. Even though it is only a penny, you don't want to squander your money away on useless things.
Also beware of people who are offering to give you a hot tip on certain stocks. If the tip is so great they would already be investing their own money into that stock instead of sharing it with you. This is usually to try to do artificial inflation of a stock that they have been unable to get rid of.
If you go into day trading or any other trading for that matter you must have enough capital to back up what you are doing. You don't want to start to buy a stock to realize that you don't have enough money to get the stock or that the money you are using on that stock is money that you need for another aspect of your life. That will make you too attached to the money and you will want to free it as soon as possible. If you are using extra money that you have you are more inclined to let the stock rise to a comfortable position before selling.
You may also want to set up a goal plan. Such as if you manage to make an extra 2 points in a day you are going to stop trading or you are going to start trading that stock . This will help you to avoid spending too much money. You will also have to pace yourself so that you do not just jump at the first thing that seems favorable.
Most of these mistakes you are going to make and that is fine. Just be prepared that one a mistake happens to you to remember the mistake and learn from it. The stock market is a very tricky game and it will take some time for you to completely understand what happens.