6 Tips to Keep Your Share Trading on Track

Ben Carlson over at A Wealth Of Common Sense has written a great article about habits and investing. Ben has highlighted the following summary points which are worth considering especially if you are having trouble keeping your share trading on track. In brackets are my thoughts and additions to Ben’s comments:

Tip 1: Investors assume they need to do extraordinary things to succeed, but they do so at the expense of the ordinary things which are so important, yet often over-looked.
[NR: Many successful traders don’t necessarily have better strategies. Rather their success comes from consistently doing the boring day to day stuff like placing and managing orders – a task so many just fail to do.]

Tip 2: Having a solid process in place that allows you to make the right decisions without thinking about them is such an unbelievably huge advantage when dealing with the inherent uncertainty in the financial markets.
[NR: In this day of lightening fast news, rumor and innuendo, the emotional rollercoaster will only get tougher to ride. Using a systematic approach will greatly reduce the ups and downs and in turn produce a better output]

Tip 3: Trying harder doesn’t always lead to better results.
[NR: You can’t control the market. The quicker you can surrender yourself over to the whims of the day to day price action, the quicker you’ll become a better trader]

Tip 4: Making fewer decisions under stressful situations is a net positive.
[NR: Sitting out in some instances actually enhances the long term return. Too often our desire to be busy leads to emotional and irrational decisions]

Tip 5: You can’t pick and choose when to follow your system. As long as you make good decisions ahead of time you should rarely, if ever, override a good process.
[NR: There is absolutely no point having a system if you don’t or can’t follow it. There is a reason why we drive on one side of the road – it works]

Tip 6: The learning process never stops. Even the very best athletes in the world can still improve their game.[NR: The most successful traders are the most passionate. It’s not a task to research and improve – it’s a delight]

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