Here's part II of my investing in securities segment:

4. RISK/REWARD- Keep in mind the risk vs the reward.  My biggest pet peeve when talking to people who claim to have outperformed the market goes something like this
Dude: "I generated 50% returns last year"
Me: "That's pretty good.  What did you do?"
Dude: "I bot Apple stock and sold puts"
Me: headexplode.gif
You have to understand that in the world of finance, your rate of return (altho the most important thing), isn't everything.  It would be way more impressive to me (or anyone else in finance) if you took half as much risk as the S&P500 and made as much, than if you took 3 times as much risk to double the return.  So don't think of your performance as one number - it's actually two.

KNOW THE CALENDAR - If you have a portfolio of stocks, you should be aware of key dates on the calendar - earnings releases, economic data, product releases, etc.  Those are the days where the security can really move.  If you are good at anticipating results, you can do well to trade around these "events" where there can be significant movement in the price of the security.  This was actually my specialty - finding value in volatile markets.  Well, except the times I was wrong.

KEEP EXTRA BULLETS - You're never going to be right on the timing of all your picks.  Sometimes, if you really believe in something, you may want a little extra ammo in case there is an initial move the wrong way.  If you thought it was good 20% ago, revisit all your assumptions (as to why it went the wrong way) and if needed it's always nice to be able to fire another bullet.

THINK ABOUT A STOP-LOSS - Sometimes, you're just going to be wrong.  I talked about firing additional bullets above, but the key to trading successfully is knowing when to give up.  There should be a price point at which you need so say, "I was wrong."  Don't be like those Lehman or Enron dudes that rode that stock down to zero.

THE GOLDEN RULE - MAKE SURE YOU ENJOY INVESTING - I don't hear about this much.  As with anything else in life, if you are going to spend a lot of time doing something, make sure you enjoy it.  Refer back to the calendar if you have to.  ;-)  Life is short.  Spending all this time researching, analyzing and following the markets is pointless if you don't enjoy the challenge.  You might as well just put your money in a diversified portfolio of index funds if you're not that interested in regularly keeping on top of your money.  That's what I do.