"You'll never go broke taking a profit" may be the worst investment advice ever given. Yeah, you'll never go broke; you'll never get rich, either.

I hate to see investors claiming victories prematurely by selling stocks after just a moderate rise. You'll never get rich taking such modest profits. Keep in mind that these profits shrink rapidly when you take into account taxes and inflation. Good investment ideas are not a dime a dozen. If you feel you have two or three or twelve, you should let time work its magic on those ideas. Constantly selling stocks after modest appreciation means you have to keep coming up with good ideas. Let's face it - perhaps the best investor of all time - Warren Buffett - owns less than two dozen stocks, many of which he's held for years. What makes you think you can crank out a dozen or two great investment ideas year-in, year out?

When I look at my personal DRIP portfolio, what I see is probably not that different than what I would see if I looked at your portfolio - a few stocks that are not doing very well, several stocks that are treading water, and a few stocks that have done extremely well. It's those few stocks that will truly make a difference in your financial future. If you always sell stocks after average profits, you'll never own the stock that will make you rich.

Look at Bill Gates, the co-founder and Chairman of Microsoft. If he would have sold his Microsoft shares after a modest rise, he would have missed out on the bigger gains that have occurred in the last few years.

Bottom line: Don't pull your flowers and water your weeds. Don't sell your winners prematurely while keeping your losers. Remember: The best investment ideas usually have shelf lives longer than 6 or 12 months.