"Be fearful when everyone is greedy and be greedy when everyone else is fearful". - Warren Buffet

These golden worlds from the oracle of Omaha are applicable not only to the stock market but also in many other spheres of life. 

How often novice retail investors fall pray to the market bubbles? The actual figures about wealth losers on bourses are astonishingly high. But sad part in this entire story is that media coverage happens only for the winners conveniently sidelining losers. This hype about successful investors in turn results into an open invitation for more number of novice entrants in the market who are bound to make mistakes. 

But whom do you blame for this deadly trap? Greedy new entrant who wants to be a millionaire overnight (ironically he looses out large part of his initial investments) is surly the best candidate to be blamed. He is simply not able to control his emotions such greed and fear which play a pivotal role in the marketplace. More or so he lacks the patience to understand the rules of the game.

Here are some of the simple and time tested rules which are essential for the newcomers on the bourses.

Very few people can time the market. There has to be a respect for unknown.

Every bull market comes to an end and so does the bear market.

Buyer never buys anything expensive while seller never sells anything cheap.

Most of the times hype in a particular sector makes certain stocks so expensive that buying such socks becomes a risky and least value creating affair (e.g. reality stocks in the current Indian market). On the contrary correction in the bear market makes stocks attractive.Unfortunately traditional novice investor buys in the bull market and sells in the bear market. Actually it should be the other way round.

One should aspire to become a value investor and not a trader. There are ample resources available on value investing. Study of the work by the likes of Warren Buffet, Peter Lynch, Marc Faber, Benjamin Graham, George Soros and others is quiet interesting in this respect.

Healthy appetite for moderate gains and optimal risks is required.

In depth study of business aspects related to management, financials, value creation is a must before any investment decision. 

Keeping all these complexities aside, isn’t it heartening that through the market place only you get a chance to own the existing and future blue-chip companies even though you have not created them. Till the time you create your own institutions, I think this is the best way you can satisfy your entrepreneurial aspirations. Only thing here is that you have to control your greed and fear very effectively and the result is surely going to be a win-win situation for everyone.