Ted Allrich is the founder of The Online Investor and author of the just-released book: Comfort Zone Investing: Build Wealth And Sleep Well At Night. In this weekly column, he'll offer advice to investors who are just getting started.

The last two columns described my experience with two biotech stocks. One was bad: Hollis-Eden Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: HEPH). One was good: Dendreon Corp. (NASDAQ: DNDN). (Please note that I am not recommending you buy or sell either of these.) Here's what I learned from the experience of losing a large amount of money, then gaining some of it back.

First, I got greedy. As they say on the Street, bulls and bears make money, pigs get slaughtered. I over-leveraged my position in HEPH because I got carried away with the science. I thought the stock was a sure winner. With all the indications coming from Washington that the company qualified for a contract, it just seemed impossible to lose. So I put way too much money on one stock, thinking this was a sure thing. But it wasn't. Without a contract, the company had no other revenues.

Ted Allrich is the founder of The Online Investor and author of the just released book: Comfort Zone Investing: Build Wealth And Sleep Well At Night. In this weekly column, he'll offer advice to investors who are just getting started.

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.

Too bad that's already been used, because it's the perfect opening for two stocks in the biotech sector. One of them flopped like a boxer hit with a perfect right hook while the other soared like a Cape Canaveral rocket. Here's what happened.

The first stock, Hollis-Eden Pharmaceuticals, (NASDAQ: HEPH) developed a drug that will fight acute radiation syndrome (ARS), or at least it did in mice and macaques. The efficacy can't be treated on humans because you can't radiate a person, then give them a treatment that may or may not bring them back. But the drug worked well in the animal studies.

MOST NOTEWORTHY: Some of today's more notable downgrades included Apartment Investment & Management Co (AIV), Weyerhaeuser Company (WY) and Edwards Lifesciences Corp (EW).

• RBC downgraded Apartment Investment & Management Co (NYSE: AIV) to Underperform from Sector Perform based on valuation and concerns regarding the company's transaction focus.

• Weyerhaeuser Co (NYSE: WY) was downgraded at BMO to Underperform from Market Perform based on valuation.

• Morgan Stanley downgraded Edwards Lifesciences (NYSE: EW) to Underweight from Equal-Weight based on increased competition and aggressive Street estimates for the downgrade.

OTHER DOWNGRADES:

• William Blair downgraded TiVo Inc (NASDAQ: TIVO) to Market Perform from Outperform citing slowing customer growth, competition, rising subscriber acquisition costs and valuation.

• Canccord cut Hollis-Eden Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ: HEPH) to Hold from Buy following the cancellation of the ARS contract.

• Morgan Stanley downgraded Cymer, Inc (NASDAQ: CYMI) to Underweight from Equal-Weight.

• Baird cut Genesco Inc (NYSE: GCO) to Neutral from Outperform following lowered guidance.

• Merriman cut Distributed Energy Systems Corp (NASDAQ: DESC) to Neutral from Buy following the company's lower-than-expected Q4 revenues.

Analyst summaries provided by TheFlyOnTheWall.com (subscription required).