One important lesson in the stock market's recent carnage is not to overpay, says Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Zweig.

"Over the past year, investors became increasingly excited over the hot performance — and even hotter future — of industries like biotechnology, Internet retailing and social media," he writes.

"But the ferocious selloff in these stocks over the past few weeks should remind every investor of a basic rule: you can be absolutely right about the future and still get wiped out."

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The Nasdaq Composite index has dropped 8.5 percent since hitting a 13-year high March 6.

Figuring out the growth path of an industry or company is important, but avoiding overpaying for the stocks you choose is even more important, Zweig says.

If you can't resist taking the plunge for hot growth stocks, at least balance that out by purchasing value stocks too, he writes.

"Momentum and value tend to diversify each other, going through good times and bad times at different times," Ronen Israel, a principal at AQR Capital Management, tells Zweig.

"As long as your recent winners remain reasonably valued, you should wait to sell, since momentum is likely to carry them higher for a while longer," Zweig notes. "By the same token, you can be patient in buying recent losers; let their recent downward momentum turn them into even greater bargains before you buy."

So why do investors overpay for hot stocks?

It's the "lottery preference," Bruce Greenwald, director of a value investing program at Columbia Business School, tells The New York Times. People "will always overpay to try to get rich quick," he said. "That’s why lotteries never fail, even though they’re bad investments."

Investors also trust themes with "complete certainty that they cannot know to be true," Greenwald adds. "Portfolio managers are always saying things like 'Tesla is the future,' or 'Amazon will dominate the web.'"

Both those stocks have recently fallen more than 20 percent from their 52-week highs.

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