Before making your first investment, answer these three questions:

• Do you want just to protect your savings from inflation, or do you expect a higher return on your investment?
• Are you sufficiently informed about the opportunities and risks the market contains?
• Are you willing to devote yourself systematically to investing, or will you pursue it only randomly?

Always bear in mind in what time frame you will need the money.

• The longer your investment horizon is, the wider the spectrum of investment opportunities becomes.
• Never assess an investment opportunity just according to historical performance. Past gains are no guarantee of future ones.

Every investment is associated with a certain degree of risk.

• Safer investments tend to bring lower yields. On the other hand, do not expect that riskier investments will always turn out to be profitable.
• It is always better to have two irons in the fire. Never invest the whole capital in a single product.

Picking a good broker is as important as choosing the stocks in which you are going to invest.

• Entrust your money only to a broker with necessary certification (licence from the Czech National Bank).
• Be sceptical to all investment recommendations in which the profit is almost guaranteed.
• Always consider whether the entire amount of fees charged by a broker is reasonable compared to the potential gain from an investment.

• Don't let emotions influence your decisions.
• If you consider an investment often cited in the media or recommended by analysts, you will most probably be one of the latecomers.
• Don't panic in a general downturn on the market.

Never make rash decisions.

• Place an order only after you have had enough reasons supporting it.
• Each and every position should be opened as if this was the one that would make you a millionaire.
• Don't invest in something you don't understand.

• Make a regular assessment of your investments in relation to market opportunities.
• Hold, or increase your position in instruments which are profitable.
• Follow to the motto "trend is my friend“, but, at the same time, have an idea about an expected gain. Take the profit when the trend turns.
• Losses are a necessary part of investing. Always set a pain threshold.
• Don't increase a losing position by averaging down, don't fight the trend.

• Educate yourself; do not invest without a plan.
• Be well informed. Read financial publications, daily news, web portals.
• Set a strategy, be disciplined, use your common sense, and, most of all, be patient.