Forget about getting rich quickly. The best way to get rich is slowly, by buying a diverse range of growing companies and by holding these for many years. This is known as, "a BUY and HOLD" strategy.
You could have bought Warren Buffett's company shares (Berkshire Hathaway Inc. BRK-A) in 1997 for US$28 and sold them in 2025 for US$496.
You could have bought 100 Walmart shares (WMT) for US$1100 in 2000 CE and sold them in 2025 for US$9400.
https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/WMT/walmart/stock-price-history.
In 2016, shares of Nvidia (NVDA) were $1.32, adjusted for stock splits. In 2025 one share could be sold for $170. A $1000 investment in 2016 would have returned almost $129,000.
Of course, this is hindsight and ignores inflation. Few people would have correctly guessed that these stocks would grow so much but they were a small part of many investors' portfolios.
On the downside you might have bought stock just before the October 1987 market crash and you might have lost half your investment. If you had not quickly sold the stocks, the best reaction was to simply do nothing. A year later the market had recovered most of the losses and now the crash is barely detectable in the subsequent market growth.
First thing. Forget what you paid for a stock!
Buy if you think a stock is going up and sell if it goes down. Emotionally, if you have lost money, selling is more difficult. But do not be too concerned if a stock drops a little if you are sure that the company is growing.
Do keep a diversified portfolio of stocks either by holding ETF's or buying a variety of stocks in a variety of businesses.
If you are lucky or smart enough to buy a rapidly growing stock, (example Nvidia (NVDA) in 2023) avoid selling too soon, let it run. If you worry it might go down quickly, take some profit by selling half or less. But remember you will have to pay capital gains tax on the profit.
Buy shares in a company only when you understand the company's business and its competition. Learn as much as you can about a stock or ETF before you buy. Two important measures of a stock's value are the price/earnings ratio (P/E) and P/E GROWTH (PEG) ratio. The PEG is calculated by dividing the P/E ratio by the profit growth rate, so a lower lower number implies a better value. Nvidia's PEG of 0.8 about August 2025 was the lowest among the other tech giants and also Nvidia's average PEG of 1.5 over the previous five years.
Your broker's web site will provide a lot of information and you can get more from many other sites. Compare share price history with competitors or similar companies.
An account with TD WebBroker allows you to compare any stock's price with other stocks in graphical form over various time period. So you can see at a glance which stocks are performing better than others.
Many on-line web brokers allow you to practice trading so you can learn how how to trade without losing (or making) money.
For example, https://finance.yahoo.com/ provides information (you do not need to log-in).
News about stocks is available from financial papers. In Canada, the National and Financial Post is available on paper and on-line. BNN Bloomberg is a Canadian TV program which also provide free programs on-line.
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/
Avoid trading on MARGIN with borrowed money. Your broker will happily loan you money to buy more of your favourite stock if you have an account. This tempting. If your stock goes up 5% in price, and, if you borrowed half of your purchase price, you just made10%. But if the stock drops 15% you lose 30% and you may get a MARGIN CALL requiring you pay you broker 15% to bring the loan up to half of the new price. If the stock drops to 50% you have lost all of your investment and your broker will sell the stock to recover the loan.
Avoid SHORT SELLING as this is good way to lose more than you think. Your broker will know the value of your stock portfolio so you have MARGIN and she will usually allow you to borrow stock. A stock has just doubled in price and it is starting to drop, so you sell the borrowed stock intending to give it back to the owner by buying it at a lower price. To your horror, the stock doubles in price again and you are smart enough to BUY it before it doubles a third time. So you have lost a very large amount of money even if you broker sells it while you still have some money left.
Avoid buying shares when the price has increased sharply and then selling when it falls. If you have a large loss, before you sell, make sure that the stock is not about to bounce back. Some investors like a stock and only buy when it falls in price and then patiently wait until it recovers. Most stocks tend to recover but some will just go sideways for a long time.
Be careful about sharp price movements on 'news.' Quite often, the news is put-out by people intent on manipulating the price to their advantage.
Pump-and-dump schemes and short sellers are forever with us. But sometimes the news may be accurate and a stock price moves rapidly up or down. Either way, it will probably reverse course as it reverts to the mean.
Companies having a relatively low Price/Earnings (P/E) ratio generally tend to be less risky. Canadian banks for example typically have P/E's around 12 whereas some growth stocks may have very high or even no P/E ratio meaning the company is not profitable but investors expect it to become profitable in future. This is quite normal for newly established companies that are growing rapidly. But, a low P/E may be a sign that the company is not growing and investors have lost interest. Normally, avoid companies with a low P/E because that may mean the company is in trouble. Check the earning and compare this with the dividend payout and any large debt.
Strong companies typically have dividend yields of 3 to 5% because investors believe the stock is growing. A long run, winning strategy is to buy companies with a track record of increasing dividends each year.
Check to see if quarterly earning are increasing. Check historical price movement to judge volatility and trends. Buy less volatile and less cyclical stocks, or trade on the swings. Generally use stop-loss, sell orders (sell stocks that drop more than 10 or 15% in price). Selling stocks at a loss is psychologically difficult but it is essential, if you are to make gains over the long term. Holding on to stocks that have lost the interest of investors is a sure way to lose money. Check the volume (number of shares sold per day or month or any other time period. Higher than average daily volume suggest more investor interest and lower volumes indicate buyers are losing interest.
Be careful before buying a stock when it is making headlines. Bre-X was a hot gold discovery that shot up in price, fooling even seasoned professionals before investors discovered that it was a total fraud.
Do not try to make money trading penny stocks (very low stock prices)that often double or triple in price before going to zero.
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