Trading stocks based on candlestick charts will definitely lose money in the long run; looking at earnings and P/E ratios is also useless.

In the past year, the number of new brokerage accounts has increased, trading commissions have risen, and brokerages have made a killing, but the brokerage sector is still bottoming out. A bunch of good companies have become old-timer stocks.

Occasionally looking at candlesticks is fine, but doing so long-term definitely won't work.

1) For stocks, you need to play the leader strategy, focus on main line sectors, and follow where market funds are flowing. When a main line drops 20%-30%, buy the dip; big money should take a few bounces and then quickly exit.

2) If you believe in a company and hold it long-term with conviction, when it drops you should be happy to add to your position. If you panic when it drops, it means you are absolutely not a value investor; you are just speculating, and you are deceiving yourself with the value investing label.

3) When a stock breaks out of a long consolidation range with wide fluctuations, go all in and catch a wave of the main upward trend.

If you want to make quick money and quickly validate your views, timing your entry is crucial. People who laid out storage positions in 2024, no matter how forward-looking they were, didn't see gains; they are worse off than those who bought storage in October 2025.