[caption id="attachment_2255" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Photo by SmokingPermitted"][/caption] Remember this in your heart:

The market is not your mother. It consists of tough men and women who look for ways to take money away from you instead of pouring milk into your mouth. - Dr. Alexander Elder

How do successful Investor/Trader differ from Amateur? Some important factors to note: 1) Hard work - They spent their time studying the market, companies, industries, and sectors. They understand their businesses. And, the traders will pay more attention to financial news, and market movement. The traders had a keen eye for how their market might be moving, and how the pricing might be changed and try to take advantage of the occasions when it moved from their benchmark. 2) Strategy - They have their own strategy, money management, and risk control skills. They could enunciate his or her specific edge in their marketplace and, in some way could quantify that too. 4) Adaptation - They knew the details of his or her P/L, but also detailed investing/trading statistics. When the stats veered off course, they were quick to make adjustments or re-capitalize their account. Read more...