kayman2u:

Education is the main thing about dealing with stocks. All we see on daily basis are companies esp Banks coming to the market to solicit for funds witout taking time to educate the investing public through forums on what or what not not to do with their stocks in the nearest future.
Let me make a quick distinction between two major classes of investors viz Institutional investors and speculative ones. An Institutional investor, say a company buys these stocks en bloc hoping to get capital appreciation and dividends on the their investments but more emphasis is placed on the dividend aspect because it constitutes a large part of their investment income in their books and these amounts are usually large.
For the average investor like you and me who mostly subcribe for minimal holdings, the amount we get as dividend is mostly always insignificant and what should matter to us most should be the capital appreciation on these shares . Speculative trade should be the main aim for those of us that fall under this category as against just keeping the certificates and boasting about the little appreciation every now and then. It should be noted that stocks are not meant to be held indefinately as is the practice here in Nigeria , instead it should always xchange hands as frequently as possible . The market value of your share does not have to drop before you trade in it , you can always get a better stock if u are willing to speculate and trying to get the stock with the best growth potential.
Our stock market is devoid of life mostly because of the ''sit tight investors '' we have around and we need to make it more volatile in order to attract more foreign interest into the system.
The keyword should be '' DONT HOLD ON TO YOUR SHARES WHEN YOU HAVE NO GOOD REASON TO DO SO '' . Some bumper opportunity may just be passing you buy.
Further enligtenment is required,