Planning to start investing in stock market? Avoid these 5 costly beginner mistakes
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- Atish Jain, CEO of Choice Connect, advises first-time investors to start with a fixed monthly SIP in a diversified Multi-Asset Fund, ignore daily price movement for the first three years, and only pick individual stocks after tracking one full market cycle.
- Mohit Bagdi, Head of Investment Research at MIRA Money, describes a typical beginner escalation — trying tips, then buying 'good names' everyone talks about, then F&O, then chasing mutual funds with the highest recent returns — with each step delivering losses rather than gains.
- Viram Shah, CEO of Vested Finance, identifies three recurring global-investing mistakes: concentrating in two or three familiar names, selling at a 10% gain, and pulling money back to India, with every withdrawal eroding returns through conversion costs.
- The Nifty 50 delivered a -2.83% return over the last 12 months, shifting investor and fund-manager focus toward global investing, where the same behavioral pitfalls apply.
- Market experts flag five recurring mistakes — chasing recent winners, investing without an asset allocation plan, letting emotions drive decisions, following tips and chasing quick F&O profits, and tracking the portfolio daily — and recommend diversification across stocks, bonds, fixed income, and gold aligned with financial goals.
Why it matters: First-time equity investors typically lose money to their own behavior before the market ever tests them — panic-selling, chasing tips, and concentration risk lock in losses that a diversified, rule-based SIP approach is designed to prevent. With the Nifty 50 down 2.83% over the past year, the cost of undisciplined decisions has become harder to recover from.
