You have multiple choices, the one is buy into a good unit trust, the next is investing in shares that the unit trusts buy, If you have time money and a sence of the economy and what is going to happen with a bunch of manipulators doing their thing with the shares you want to buy , you start trading.
Critieria 1 : Money
2 , research, but don,t expect the market to think the same
3, More Money
4, So unless you up for fun and games and balls of steel and a lot of research which mostly mean jack, just get a unit trust
I dont think many of us playing this game have not taken a major hit on a investment issue.
But as with orca, shrewd investment has recovered his losses. But that does not come from stock picking, it takes research and knowledge, and a slight bit of a % of luck