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Ask any celebrated investor the secrets to their success, and they’ll probably mention their setbacks too. Nobody is perfect. Everyone makes mistakes, and it’s learning from them that can separate the pros from the amateurs.

Fortunately, that doesn’t mean you have to lose money along the way. As Warren Buffett once said, the best way to learn is “vicariously” — from other people’s mistakes (1).

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Buffett has confessed to a fair share of howlers. The same goes for Jim Cramer. The Mad Money host and author recently opened up to CNBC Make It about some of his biggest errors. He says learning from these “boneheaded mistakes” helped make him a better investor (2). And they can arguably help us, too, if we analyze them properly.

We’re often taught to be patient, stand by our convictions and ignore outside noise. However, sometimes things happen that warrant reevaluating an investment case.

Cramer learned this lesson with Bausch Health (NYSE:BHC). When investors dumped the stock after it fell short of its profit forecasts and faced earlier-than-expected patent expirations, he shrugged it off as ignorant panic selling. Cramer admitted he preferred to believe the company’s PR team rather than investigate the warning signs — and said it cost him “a fortune.”

Holding losers too long is one of the most widely cited blunders made by investors (3). Nobody likes to take a loss, and this emotion can overshadow rational thinking.

Ideally, investors should objectively analyze every holding after a setback. That said, when you’re researching investments, it can be hard to know which sources to trust.

Tools like Moby can help make that process simpler and smoother. Moby offers you investment insights broken down into simple, easy-to-understand formats. They’re written by a team of former hedge fund analysts and financial experts who spend hundreds of hours weekly sifting through the latest financial news and data. And Moby’s picks have beaten the S&P 500’s returns by almost 12%, on average.

Before buying and becoming emotionally involved, it’s also wise to establish a list of minimum criteria to stay invested and potentially consider implementing a stop-loss order, which instructs the broker to automatically sell the stock if it falls to a certain price. The latter option especially makes sense with companies that have great potential but also great downside risk.

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