The world of penny stock day trading is often compared to gambling. Why?Because when you win, you win big. If you lose, you can lose a whole bunch of money. The speculative nature of penny stocks or microcap trading is well known. Companies that offer cheap stock are not the same companies you’ll find in the blue chip market. On the contrary, they are often very risky investments.

The reason why their stock is so cheap is because they are just starting out in business or they have mismanaged their business and need a quick bail out. Selling inexpensive stock is a way to raise some fast cash for their enterprise.

Determining which small cap stocks are a good buy is very difficult and not for amateur investors. The truth is, most microcap stocks are pure junk. It’s really common for a novice investor to lose money after being lured into buying a cheap stock that is supposed to make them rich.

Very often, these sure deals are nothing but scams that are designed to make the insider stock picking services big money. They count on your lack of experience and knowledge to make them rich.

Only about 5% of the small cap market is truly worth investing in – the rest should be tossed aside like yesterday’s garbage.

The good news is that with the right information and guidance, you can make really great profits in this market. Most smart investors will sign up for a newsletter that specializes in penny stock picks. The reputable newsletters will only analyze the top 5% of companies that they feel are worth putting money on. They will usually recommend three to five good picks. You then decide whether you want to go with their picks or not.

Another reason why it’s a good idea to go with a newsletter is that you can greatly minimize your risk. Wise investing is all about picking more winners than losers and not putting all your eggs into one basket.

Since you probably have a full-time job, you don’t have time to spend pouring over endless data about thousands of companies out there offering cheap stock. You definitely need experts to do this for you, and you also need the tools to make your investment decisions easier.

Many people get into day trading penny stocks for the thrill of making big money in a short amount of time. While this is totally possible, you must also temper your enthusiasm a bit in order to make good decisions based on factual information.

Here’s an example of a typical microcap stock trade:

Let’s say you find a start up company that’s in the software business. They create medical software for hospitals. This sounds like a pretty good business to you so you take a look at their stock offering.

You see that they are selling shares at 50 cents a piece. So, you decide to buy 500 shares for $250. You sit on the stock for a while then you see that it starts to go up. It peaks at $3 per share and you decide to sell. You’ve just made a nice $1,250 profit from that one stock. That’s a 600% rate of return!

This kind of profit is what excites most people about small cap stocks, however, if the opposite should happen and that stock goes down by even inches, you’ll lose all of your initial investment money. This is why you should never invest money that you need to pay your bills and buy food.

Only invest extra money that you can spare. It’s similar to if you were going to Las Vegas for a vacation and you budgeted a certain amount of money to spend on gambling at the casinos. If you lose it, no sweat – it’s fun money anyways.

Day trading penny stocks can be looked at in the same way. It’s fun and profitable when you win, but not so much when you lose. Unfortunately, many investors gamble with money they shouldn’t be risking and lose it all with one or two bad trades. I know this isn’t going to happen to you because you’re going to learn how to invest the smart way, and in this topsy turvy market, that’s the only way you’ll end up being a winner.

Tags: full time job, insider stock, novice investor, small cap stocks, stock day trading