The only time I have ever lost money on stocks has been on penny stocks. My first purchase as a 17 yr old dreamer was several thousand shares of a stock for .01 cent a share that was "posed" to hit $5-6 in a few weeks. Well it did hit $5-6 a couple months down the road and I tried like crazy to sell. But the stock was shut down before my stock sold and by the time it opened back up where I could sell it was worth about .0001 cent a share. Not really sure what happened because this was before the internet but I suspect this was a pump and dump that got caught and thrown off the exchange. There was some mention of fraud but the investigation was ongoing and I never checked back. The company is worthless today because the tech is never going to be used again.
It seems the strategy is only if you're willing to lose in order to learn are penny stocks a good option. Otherwise, for instance me for instance, who has little patience, would be well advised to stick with a mutual fund. I don't have a lot of money to burn up trying to learn the ins and outs of the penny stock game. sounds good JR. I'll pick up some of those books and get acclimated.
Pennystocks have got their place in the stock market. One only needs to work smart. Pennystocks of high performance companies are alright. You can also not go wrong with Canadian pennystocks. Another good avenue to buy penny stocks is investing in budding research and development companies which have pent up potentials like small pharmaceutical and biotech companies.