Many people mistakenly think that doing well on the stock market (or any other market) takes a lot of work and a lot of time. Part of the reason for this is that people in the markets want to make what they do look hard and, therefore, exclusive. The truth is that you don't have to spend your whole life on the markets in order to do well.
I'll give you an example of myself. Most years, I can't be very active in the markets for long stretches of time because I have to travel or take care of other things. One year, I added a six-week trip between the end of May and the beginning of July. During that year, I made about a dozen trades on the stock market. Want to know how much money I made that year? It was higher than 200%.
You might think that this is a strange thing. It isn't.
In about 18 months, between 2002 and 2003, I was able to double the value of my retirement account by trading stocks. I had to do this to make up for how badly my mutual funds had done, so I had to be much more careful than in the example above. Again, this only happened on a small number of trades. v
In reality, I don't usually trade that much in a year. If I get much past twenty, it's pretty rare.
I'm not a day trader, that's clear. I don't move quickly from one place to another. My strategy is something I've come up with over the years. It lets me find stocks with a good chance of going up that I don't have to keep an eye on all the time. The positions I take are meant to be held for at least a few weeks, if not a few months. That's when the biggest moves happen, so I want to trade in that timeframe.
The three main types of market analysis that I use in my strategy are fundamental, technical, and quantitative. Still, I can pick stocks in a couple of hours at most. If there's nothing really interesting to look at, the whole thing can be done very quickly.
Also, if I already have open positions, I won't usually be looking for new ones. If that's the case, there's not much to do besides checking to see how the stocks are doing and if there's any important news. I can trade with my system in just a few hours each month.
You might be thinking that I have a great plan. Maybe I do. Given the constraints of my schedule, it works for me without a doubt. I don't think it's a very big secret, though. In fact, I wrote all about it in my book, The Essentials of Trading, so you can read it for yourself.
The most important thing is that I was able to find a way to trade that works for me. That's something that anyone can do. It's about being honest with yourself and coming up with a plan that fits within the limits you set for trading or investing in the markets. You might be able to day trade, or you might be like me and have little time to look for good stocks to buy.
No matter what, you should do what works for you and know that you can trade well no matter how much time you spend on it.
