Welcome Julie. Glad you could join us.

I think you will find most Fools begin to invest in opportunity stocks once they get confortable with investing. Most probably keep mutual funds as their core investment, but most like to play individual stocks too as they learn about good ones likely to do well. Besides, mutual funds have an expense ratio that get paid every year. Cost of ownership of stocks can be much lower.

Your method of using stops is great. Most tell you to have a price target in mind for a stock when you buy it. A stop is a great way to impose some discipline on yourself to force you to sell when that target is met. Sometimes it can be tempting to hold on too long--especially when things are going well.