Think Before You Start Share Trading - Is it Really Worth Your Time and Effort?

We will assume that you are considering going into2. If you use technical analysis i.e. Bollinger Bands, you
the stock market. Of course you have highmight see a break through about to appear after the
expectations of acquiring a very significant return onstock has been side tracking for a while. Or you
your capital on which you intend to invest.might see where a stock has been consistently
Hopefully it should also provide a far better returnhitting a resistance line for a while but is trending
than what you would otherwise achieve by investingslightly upwards. Obviously it is only a matter of time
your money into managed funds (less risky thantill that resistance line will become the new support
single stocks) or even possibly term deposits whereline.
your returns are guaranteed.Of course this all involves time and research, but let
Well, how do you achieve such nice fat returns? Theme assure you that it is well worth the effort you
answer naturally is very simple. All you need to do isput into it.
Buy low and sell high.If you can do that just aboutEventually there comes a time when is it really the
most of the time you will turn out to be a verybest time. to sell? When you have made a profit of
successful profitable stock trader.course. Easy? The hard part is knowing how much
It sounds so very easy,but in reality it takes a bitprofit to take.
more effort than just doing that.For example: we shall assume the stock has risen up
But firstly what type of trader do you want to be?to around a nice 20% profit, so what are you going
There are mainly two types but of course it is all ato do? Sell now, or wait until it is up 50%, 100% or
matter of degree as some traders have a bit of200%? This really is up to you. Get too greedy and
each type in their makeup.you might risk seeing a reversal in the share price
We shall cover the first type of trader, the mostand you could possibly end up with a little or worse
prolific of all traders. Just answer these questionsno profit at all.
truthfully .I don't care if you don't as the only personI myself have usually sold by the time it has has hit
you are fooling is yourself. Do not worry we are all20% as I personally have a preset profit set. If and
guilty of that from time to time, myself included.only if the stock is still trending upwards consistently,
Do you listen to the financial news and do you dothen and only then will I put off selling. But I always
what exactly what everybody else is doing? Are youwithout fail, make sure a stop loss is set in place to
selling when the market sells? Are you buying whenlock in my profits.
everybody else does? You hear there is a run onYou will hear traders say in chat rooms "I had that
Gold or Uranium or whatever, and right NOW this isstock, I sold it when it was up 20%, but if I had not
the time to buy in before you miss out! Does thissold it at that time, now it would be up to 300%
sound familiar? It should, because this is happeningprofit at least. How stupid I was I when I sold it!"
every day in every stock market around the world.If only! It could have just as easily gone the other
If this sounds like you do not despair, you are inway and you ended up penniless. Hindsight can be a
good company for at least 80% traders arewonderful thing if you can learn from the mistakes
influenced by these outside circumstances. You haveyou make.
gone and joined that exclusive club called the HERD.Next how much of the stock you should sell? All or
This is an acronym for: How Everybody Reactsnothing? Again this is really up to you. The situation
Differently.that I like happens when I am trading a Penny
In case you are wondering I just made that up.But itdreadful. If the stock has made me 100%.(it does
gets my point across. There is no method or systemhappen occasionally) I sell of exactly half, get my
being used in the Herds reactions in the market place,original investment back and that leaves me with a
all you will find is panic,mayhem and emotions thatstock which has virtually cost me nothing, and I still
reign supreme.keep an eye on it, let it go, and raise the stop losses
The second type of trader is forever learning, in factwhen needed. Money for Jam!
it never ends. They have learned by bitterMany traders are losing good money today because
experience how emotional trading can cost themthey are second guessing and are always trying to
money.The difference between the first and secondbeat the market. If you are very new to this game
trader is that the second trader has become awareand are NOT planning to spend much time on either
of their emotions , though they still experienceresearch or teaching yourself then unfortunately the
problems in this area.chances are you will lose your money. In fact I can
The first trader is just swept along in a sea ofguarantee that you will, because the odds are against
emotion. Please bear in mind the second trader will stillyou right from the very start.
slip up from time to time as no one is ever perfect.You might not be aware of it but you are competing
With out belaboring this point too much as this areawith professional traders, big players and smart
of the second traders expertise and what is requiredinsiders who are consistently making good profits
has been adequately covered in past articles.mostly because many other traders keep losing. Plus
Ok, now for some basics.Believe it or not.Not everywhat are the chances that you can predict the
trader uses these basics, if they did there would be amarket? The chances are exceedingly slim. I shall
lot more profitable traders around.reiterate once more "There is no crystal ball!
Now the first thing you must learn: is how do youThe bottom line is that it is very easy to look at the
know when it is the right time to buy? As I saidpast and see all the mistakes you will have made,
above Buy low and sell highand you will. However it can be very hard to make
There are a couple of ways to do just that.Therethe right decisions needed in the future to make a
are other ways of course but two will suffice to giveprofit. Unless you learn to know all the market trends
you some idea.well, and begin to understand how the different
1. As we have covered in a very recent article. Astocks perform, and take the time to educate
good time is when a quality stock has been oversoldyourself then most likely you will not be able to make
due to either bad news or just plain panic selling. Weprofitable trades.
are seeing a lot of these types of stocks in today'sEven professional traders do make mistakes and lose
markets.These are ideal stocks for medium to longmoney.
term gains.