3 Strategies to Make Better Stock Trading Picks

If making fantastic stock trading picks was easy, wouldn't we all quit our jobs and play the stock market all day? The truth is simple and obvious: The first skill that any investor or trader has to learn is how to pick their stocks.
Let's look at 3 strategies that can make your portfolio take off.
Do your homework- It seems like a no brainer doesn't it? Every day I talk to people and answer questions where they ask me what stock I would buy? While the question itself isn't so terrible, the follow up response I get often comes the same day.
They thank me for the name (that I told them to go home and research) and they are excited that they now own 100 shares.
Homework takes time and there's no way you can do your homework on a stock in a couple of hours.
You will be crushed if you treat stock investing as gambling.
Invest in groups- For the amateurs who don't have the time to go through the process of professional, full time investment professionals, consider an investment club.
This is a group of people who pool their money and divide the responsibilities of maintaining their portfolio.
Often the job of evaluating and making stock trading picks is assigned to various members of the club who have experience or knowledge in certain sectors of the market.
How long would it take to build a house if only one person were building it? Divide the duties and you will make more money.
Have a set of rules- We have all heard that discipline is the key to being the best at anything and making money in the stock market is no exception.
You have to develop a set of rules that you never break when making stock trading picks even if it means losing a little bit of profit.
One of your rules may be that you should know if the stock you bought was a long term investment or a short term trade.
Once that is established, you aren't allowed to change it.
Rules do one important thing: save you money.