I just started this august, my initial capital is 5K. I was about 15% down at first, but was able to recover my losses by observing and researching how the stock market really works. One of the biggest mistake I made, was panic selling, whenever my stock hits negative I would sell it in an instant instead of holding on to it and to let it recover or even makes a gain, for days or so. I have a threshold on what percent loss/gain should I hold on to the stock before selling it to minimize loss and if gain, not to be greedy. I also learned to control my emotions when to buy and when to sell, before I would buy anything during trading hours without knowing what the particular stock just to zero-out my cash value, but I learned that not buying anything at all while still holding your cash safely is the best choice. Trading stocks depends on the traders attitude and what technique suits himself. I started at 5K and gradually increasing it as my learning continues to minimize the money loss. I read the forum discussions, the gurus like MoD, epgarias, neshem, and others alike really help me a lot. No matter how small your loss or gain, respect it, don't look at the amount, look at the percentage. I'm now at 8% gain
