trading halt, page-211

Mongy,

you seem like a decent sort of bloke and this has been a hell of a stock for a newbie (that's not an insult, it just means I'm old), but let me give you some friendly advice,

you say

it's as simple as that. It might take another year for the share price to get back up, a positive earnings report would certainly help

mate,

Forge will not have a positive earnings report for a long, long, time. the share price may rise and the share price may fall, but it's all on speculation at the moment. Forge have already said that they won't pay a dividend in 2014 so all earnings reports are based on forward planned work already estimated, very rarely are they done without cost over-rides.

I'm taking a punt on Forge, just like a lot of others, but a punt is all it will be.

now,

lessons you should take away from this trade,

lesson one, Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

if you have $10 000 to invest, pick 5 companies from 5 different sectors, not just one company from one sector, it very rarely goes well, or if it does, you try and repeat it and that's when you fail.

Lesson two, when you buy a stock, set a stop/loss.

so when you bought Forge for $1.75 (odd) and it hit $1.45, you would have sold out and moved on.

Lesson three, if you decide to invest a large quantity of money with one company, use dollar cost averaging, e.g. buy $2000 worth one month and then $2000 worth the next month and so forth.

these lessons won't make you rich overnight, but they should help in the long run,

Cheers and I wish you all the best with your investing journey.