Has The Stock Market Got You Down? Are You Concerned About Your Ability To Retire?
July 31, 2009 by Marc Abrams
Filed under Stock Trading
Did we ever think that a decade or more of stock market gains could be wiped out over a period of several months? The years of easy 8% to 10% annual returns are long gone. Do you find yourself asking questions? What am I going to do about my retirement projections that used those annual returns? How will I ever get my finances back on track? Well, we have entered a new age with new questions to be asked. What are you going to do?
You need to take control of your investments. You can no longer rely solely on the advise of your broker or financial advisor. After all, didn’t they allow you to get into this position in the first place?
You as an investor must learn to think differently. You might find that you can no longer afford to wait until those precious stocks recover, you know, the ones that you have an emotional tie to. That is entirely alright. Who cares from where your positive investment returns will come. What is important is that they do come.
The average investor needs to change the way he thinks. We need to teach ourselves to invest not with emotion, but with common sense. I treat my investing activities like a business. If a particular trade is not working as I had out as planned, I close it out and move on.
I have been told by real estate investors that the profit is made at the purchase of a property, not on the sale. Is it possible to apply that to the stock market? Absolutely, I have clients that do that very thing.
A change in thinking will shift your focus to monitoring the trade during its expected life. I say expected life because that is known prior to entering into the trade. You will no longer just hope for a particular trades increase in value. Yes, you will know your exit strategy prior to entering into the trade!
You need to teach yourself to run your investing activities like a business, monitoring the trade through its life cycle. You will no longer be at the whim of the stock market. I can assure you that you will feel in control of your investments.
Surprisingly, there are stock market investing strategies that allow you significantly more control over the outcome. The stock markets most successful investors do not just hope things go their way. They have tools at their disposal and they use those tools to give them the best chance of success.
Successful investors rely strategies that tip the odds in their favor, and they have learned to treat investing like a business. What are these strategies? Well, that is beyond the scope of this article. However, in order to find success you can start by changing the way you think.
