This game is for everyone who can sign account documents. I have made a lot of money trading stocks, commodities and currencies following very simple rules and guidelines. I have many friends who have made fortunes investing in growth stocks. I regret I did not listen to some of them, like this guy who many years ago told me "you know I plan to invest in a company called Microsoft currently trading at $2 per share. I suggest you do the same because their technology is the future". You made very vague statements that make me skeptical whether you have actually invested in anything or your goal is to simply cast doubt and fear on the investment process in general for your own personal reasons. I have noticed some people who do that on purpose lurk in trading forums. Maybe if you give more details we can discuss your problems on a sounder basis.
I am not interested in daytrading. It is a path of ruin for me in many ways. The only thing I would consider along this line is fading the opening hour of select issues. Not in my immediate future. I am not interested in pips, not a term I am familiar with, though I see it thrown around here. Not interested in currencies, short term holdings. I am "Joe Retail" at home, drawing inspiration from many resources but now focused on just what I like and suits me. I focus on IPOs of the past several years, in areas I can understand and grasp, with leadership I believe in, with marketshare to be grabbed. I have a full time job and plan to keep it for many years. If you suspect I am a lurker trying to cast doubt, take a look at my >3yr public blog at 4nursebee.blogspot.com More doubt should be had in this arena anyway. Trading is zero sum. I know many people that have lost a lot of money, yet nobody that has made money.
Check out the journals section. Plenty of good threads with live calls, from consistently profitable traders. I'll leave it at that.
If you going to be a "buy and hold" investor, stick with dividend stocks-low debt and constant earnings. There are many who have done well as investors, but this is a Traders Forum, so I doubt you will meet up with those investors. I do long term stocks just using Monthly/weekly charts, but am married to just a few and all are dividend stocks.
401K is dead money. Overpriced underperforming Mutualfunds. The only people who make money are the fund managers. Naked equity is dead. Stock picking is dead. Only way to get returns is SPY and learning how to hedge via options.
Don't regret too much because MSFT actually never traded at $2 per share on a public exchange. It IPO'd in early 1986 in the mid $25 handle. That would turn out to be the low as it very quickly started moving upwards and in only 14 months the stock price had shot up to $115 and in late 1987 had its first 2-1 split. I am sure someone back then must have thought, well, the stock has already more than quadrupled, wish I would have bought it when it IPO'd on the secondary market, should I really buy it here? Possible similar to how folks thought when GOOG was in the upper $300's handle and having remorse for not buying it at $100 when it debuted on Nasdaq. When you look back at historical price charts in terms of price history, they are a function of hindsight really and factor in the stock splits. But in reality, what the stock actually traded for in real time in a specific year, ten years ago or whatever, is a different story.
I retract that. There is reason for regret. Picking up 1000 MSFT shares in 1986 and holding present day would yield you a position now of 288,000 shares. So potentially a $25K investment would be worth $8.8MM. But getting back on track to OP. The most successful folks on here, which I will be the first to admit is not myself, not even close, all have some kind of system that enables them a high probablility of winning trades or at the least, a strategy that consistently outputs a higher degree of winners vs. losing trades, along with a systematic dedicated forumula of how much capital output in terms of portfolio % is on the line for each particular trade. To me this is trading; anything else to some degree or less is simply speculation. So in keeping that perspective its no different than anything else. Will it rain tomorrow or be sunny? The chances are 50/50 or possibly more or less. I think my biggest regret is never actually working with a trading group or folks in person that knew what the heck they were doing. You can only learn so much from reading a book or staring at charts all day by yourself. Especially the way the markets have evolved since the early 2000's. Lots of edges that worked in the past have now become extinct. But there are still many people out there making money who have rolled with the evolution.