If I could distill my time and experience in investing into 5 key lessons that I've learned, they would be: 1. Time in the market is more important than timing the market When I first started out investing, I knew the mantra of "buy low, sell high" was the way to profits, so I naively believed that timing the market was more important, even though experienced investors told me otherwise.
But I’ve come to realise that it is extremely difficult to time the market. I've tried technical analysis and various indicators, but one thing that you can never account for are black swan events i.e. surprise events that majorly affect the company or its stock price. Take for instance, the sudden oil rig explosion which caused BP's stock price to plummet by more than 50%.
Instead, some of the best performing stocks in my portfolio are the ones which I've bought...