Posts Tagged ‘long term investing’

Do not trade the markets without ample preparation

Sunday, March 7th, 2010

If you are new to the markets, it is imperative that you work hard to educate yourself before risking any money.  Most people are attracted to the markets because they hear of person X making 50% this year, person Y doubled their money on a trade and on and on.  People are not apt to share in the major disasters they have had, and often exaggerate the profits and underestimate the losses when speaking about what they have done.  It is very common to not want to relive a painful moment when speaking to others about your investment decisions.  So before you decide to take the plunge, you will have to figure out what exactly it is that you are tying to accomplish

 

There are two 3 types of trading that can be done:  short term (minutes to days), swing trade (days to weeks) and long term investing (weeks to years).  Simply discovering which type of trading suits you might seem like an easy task, but it is most likely the most important decision you will make.  To make the most of it, you will need to match up the trading style with your level of risk and type of personality you have

 

Short term trading is also synonymous with day trading, although positions can be held overnight and still be considered a day trade for the most part.  This is probably the riskiest type of trading for most people and requires the most amount of time.  If you have a full time job when the markets are open, this is probably not for you, or only in small batches.   While some people do day trading manually, others prefer the help of a day trading robot to automate things.

 

Swing trading is much more manageable than trying to learn day trading for most people, but still requires constant monitoring during the day.  With swing trading the amount of time and concentration required is far less than with day trading, but it will still require you to monitor your positions each evening, and if something is close to a price target or stop area, monitor during the day as well.  Swing trading tries to capture a bigger move in a stock, such as a 5% or 10% or more move in a single direction with limited risk.  Since swing trading entails holding for bigger gains and for longer periods of time, the actual trading activity of buys and sells is far less than with day trading.  Anyone looking to swing trade should keep in mind that its far less risky than day trading, but still entails betting on the short term direction in the price of a stock.

 

Long term investing is what most people are familiar with – buy and hold.  The main thing that has diffentiated over the last ten or so years is the economic climate, which makes it a riskier proposition to just buy something and forget about it.  Many investors have learned a hard lesson when they watched a significant gain turn into a big loss because they just held on.  Every investor these days needs a fixed plan to exit a position rather than hold and hope.

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