All about investment

by Tom Sanders

I'm sure the title of this article will seem like heresy to many, but l truly feel that to be successful as a trader doesn't require that you be an expert at picking stocks. Far too many people spend all their time worrying about what stock to trade only to blow the trade due to poor discipline.

Obviously no one can be successful in the markets if they can't pick a winning stock, but that doesn't mean they need to pick it themselves. There are sources of penny stock picks with a reasonably high success rate to make anyone with self discipline and good risk and money management a fair chunk of change over time. One of these that I currently take advantage of is the Doubling Stocksnewsletter which provides penny stock recommendations based on Marl, the stock trading robot.

Having said that, regardless of how good your stock picks are or where they come from, if you don't have the discipline to trade the stock properly then it really doesn't matter how good the stock pick is. How often have you been in a trade that starts to move against you but rather than getting out you talk yourself into staying because you're "sure" it will turn around again. And why are you so sure? Because you've convinced yourself that you are right and the market is wrong and it will correct itself if you just hang on a little longer. If you've been trading for a while then you've been there. I know you have. We all have.

How about this one; the stock is moving in the right direction but because you are greedy you fail to take profits when you should, even though you told yourself you would before you entered the trade. You failed to do it because you were sure it would go higher. You were greedy and you broke your own rule, whatever that rule may have been. Then the stock drops back by 10% before you bail out. You've just lost some cold hard cash because you didn't have the discipline to follow through on the rules you made before the trade.

It's always easy to decide what your rules of engagement are when you're not exposed in an actual trade. In fact this is the right time to make trading decisions, when you're least emotional about it. Once we enter the trade we're immediately invested, both financially and emotionally, and it's very difficult to behave rationally. This is true for beginners and experts alike. If you're a poker player you probably understand this very well. Mastering the calculation of odds in poker is actually relatively simple, mastering your emotions about a hand is not so simple at all.

I believe if the average trader took advantage of a successful stock picking service or newsletter, like the Doubling Stocks newsletter, and spent their energy mastering their own psychology they would see a much bigger bang for their effort.

There are other successful penny stock picking newsletters than the Doubling Stocks newsletter, but this is the one I'm currently using and finding great success with. In addition to personal trading psychology is the art of risk and money management for traders which can also receive much more focus if you're not weighing yourself down with trying to pick the big winner.

I highly encourage traders to spend more time working on their psychology and less time worrying about how to pick a winning stock. After all, picking a winning stock is something you can offload to an expert, but executing the trade properly is something you have to deal with yourself.

If you'd like to learn more about Marl the stock trading robot and the Doubling Stocks newsletter please see my review
Is Doubling Stocks a Scam or a Godsend?

If you'd like to learn more about the risk and money management techniques I use be sure to sign up for the Doubling Stocks Bonus Pack, your FREE Trader's Guide to Money Management

Tom Sanders
http://www.MrAutomate.com

About the Author

I have a degree in physics and a minor in computer science. After two years developing software for particle physics research I found my true passion in the markets. For nearly a decade now I've been developing automated trading systems for both the stock market and the Forex market. Currently I make my living trading from my home Canada.