Investing Tips: Hope, Fear And Reality.

Here is a great passage taken from the book "How To Make Money In Stocks" by William O'Neil.

• Everybody loves to buy stocks; no one loves to sell them. As long as you hold a stock, you still have hope it might come back up enough to at least get you out even. Once you sell, you abandon all hope and accept the cold reality of temporary defeat.
  
  Investors are always hoping rather being realistic. The fact that you want a stock to go up so that you can at least get out even has nothing to do with the brutal reality of the market. The market only obeys the law of supply and demand.
  
  A great trader once noted that there are only two emotions in the market: hope and fear. "The only problem," he added, "is we hope when we should fear and we fear when we should hope." (pg. 93)