I don't know anyone who managed to hang on to anything long enough for that kind of return... consider buying MSFT or WMT a year out of their IPO. A handful of people may have done it who didn't work there, but I don't know any.
To hold for that kind of return is to be willing to ride it up and down. Through the crashes or potential crashes. Through the sky is falling articles. Few people have that kind of risk tolerance. Once you sell, you likely will never buy it back, and certainly buy in at a different price. BUT... what goes up must come down, and nothing goes up forever.
When do you sell that 3200% stock?
If you managed to hold it that long, WOULD you sell it? Prolly not, and you WILL find stories of people who held through 2000 and it never headed back up again or went to 0.
Stocks that became a 3200% stock: Global Crossing, Enron, ATT, Lucent (which IPO'd at $35 and last I looked was $2), Loral... all $100 stocks that took your investment to $0 from bankruptcy. There went your 3200%, but you did have it for a while.
Hey, I BOUGHT CISCO at $102... still have that CISCO, so no matter what CISCO does, I have lost. I keep it to remind myself what not to do. I'm not going after 3200% stocks anymore
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The flip side of this is I bought GLW at $3 in 2003. I finally sold it at $24 last year ago. It then went up to $29, and fell back down to the $22 it is now. Is it a good stock? It too is one of the best, but it's doing nothing right now and sitting at $22. There's better places for money.
You know, there's no easy answers or everyone would be doing it, do a lot of homework on your companies. Focus on a small basket and know them as well as you know your hands. Then, instead of buying every pos that gets hyped, you'll get a better feel for timing the ones you KNOW and what they're doing. Course, this takes years of experience, and that basket will change according to market conditions. You will always add some up and coming stuff, but within your risk tolerance (I don't consider GROW a risk at all. Just EXTREMELY volatile as AMD once was).
I don't think OTC is where it's at... because there's risk, and then there's insanity. It's like playing Russian Roulette... if you get lucky once, you just keep going til you get unlucky? Of course you will. No one learns a lesson til they lose.
3200% gains are possible, but you will never be able to plan for it. If you are the type that can get the 3200 returns, you will also be the type to follow it into 0% again in bankruptcy.
Plan for the 5%-20% a month if you can. That's realistic
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