The most important factor which determines if you successfully deal with a selloff is how you are positioned before one. When faced with a correction or a bear market your portfolio’s risk needs to be properly set to your personality, age, goals, savings and overall position in your life. It’s very tempting when starting a portfolio to take more risk when stocks are moving up and less risk when stocks are moving down. However, if you’re investing for the long term, there will be many of both scenarios. You need to visualize how you’d react when you make 20% in a year or lose 30% in 6 months. When deciding on the amount of risk you’re willing to take, one of the most important aspects is to avoid basing your choice on where you think the market will go up or down in the short term. You need to have a baseline plan for all markets to avoid scenarios where you panic. It’s easy to panic when you don’t have a plan in place. If your risk profile is wrong, you will likely underperform. Taking too much risk can cause quick painful losses. If you switch to a more conservative approach after you lost money, it will be difficult to make the money back.
Stay Disciplined
No matter how much you plan or how closely your portfolio matches your risk profile, if you want to go against your plan on a whim of a decision, it’s possible. There can be some circumstances where you need to wait a defined period before you can get your money back, but eventually, you will be able to. You can override your personal financial advisor if you have one and you can take your money out of passive funds at inopportune times if you are making emotionally charged investing decisions. These are all mistakes you can make if you don’t follow through on your discipline. Recognizing you have the freedom to mess up your finances is daunting for some people who aren’t experienced. The key for inexperienced and even experienced investors is to take a methodical approach rather than being reactionary.
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I think we can all agree that habits are what determine our success or failure in any endeavor, trading included. So, how do we go about developing the type of habits that will lead us to profitable trading?
The answer: Routine.
Proper trading habits do not just magically appear out of thin air (unfortunately). They can sometimes take years to form. However, luckily for you, you have the power to put into motion a plan that will bring forth the proper trading habits sooner than otherwise possible. The development of positive habits, the ones that lead to success in any field, is something you can make a conscious effort to achieve simply by implementing consistent daily routines.
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When an aspiring trader asks me to recommend books on technical analysis he or she is often surprised at my answer. While I do have a technical favourite or two (besides my own) I am quick to redirect him or her to books on trading psychology.
Technical analysis is worthless without a thorough understanding of the psychology behind winning and losing, buying and selling, fear and greed, risk versus reward, the past versus the future, the knowable versus the unknowable. Technical analysis is best used as a psychological tool to help the trader manage random price action and the emotions associated with it, not as a way to predict price action and thus confirm the trader’s egotistical need to be right. Psychology first; technical second.
One of my favourite “go to” authors on trading psychology is Mark Douglas. Although he is best known for his book Trading In The Zone, Mr Douglas’ first book The Disciplined Trader is a gem of a read also. I recommend both but start with The Disciplined Trader. It will help you better understand and appreciate the principles discussed in Trading in the Zone.
The following is from the INTRODUCTION and provides the thesis for the book. In it, Douglas discusses the following:
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Owing to its irrational nature, people often assume that investing in the stock market is a rather difficult affair. Many even compare it to gambling and consider it impossible. With the amount of negative opinions regarding the stock market, it seems like a place where everybody loses. We have to set the record straight, once and for all.
Investing is not rocket science and investing in the stock market is relatively easy to manage if you do it the right way. Your mindset is the one stopping you from investing and it will be the one that will help you invest. Everyone has their own opinions about the market and a lot of people make it difficult for themselves, more than necessary.
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This is a post written by Mastermind, SanaSecurities. The original post appears here.
Let me assure you – No matter how positive (or negative) you are about something, there will always be much which will not be in your control.
There are things you cannot change and things that are totally in your control. The hard task is to understand the difference between the two.
When I started writing this post, the idea was to list in order of importance, habits which set apart successful investors from those who achieve substandard returns. Naturally, such a list would require me to first state who would qualify as a ‘successful investor’ and what’s ‘substandard’.
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This post is written by Mastermind, Sana Securities. The original post appears here.
I have written about educated speculation in the stock markets (here) and about how to create an ideal streamlined portfolio of stocks for the long-term (here). A topic I have never touched is short-term trading in stocks. The irony is that this is what keeps me busy on a regular basis. If you follow the markets as much as I do, it is hard to resist buying and selling in the short-term. So here it is.
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