Commandment No. 4: Trading Gains, Not Investment Losses

Editor's note: Jim Cramer's new book, Real Money: Sane Investing in an Insane World, is available in selected bookstores now. As a special bonus to RealMoney readers, we will be running Cramer's "Ten Commandments of Trading." For more about the new book and to order it, click here. To learn his "Twenty-Five Rules of Investing," click here. To read Cramer's first commandment, click here. To read Cramer's second commandment, click here. To read Cramer's third commandment, click here. Today, we present Cramer's fourth commandment.

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When you mark something as a trade, you should not expect to make as much money on it as you would as an investment. A trade, like buying something into a quarter, is not about trying to make money over a long period of time. ...