Learning the ropes of trading vs investing

One of the things I have learned about trading in all my years (been trading since 2009) Is that you need to have reasonable expectations.

Trading is a lot harder than you think when you first start out. At first you think its easy.

Then you have your first loss, and you realize, oh man, maybe this isn’t for me.

Then you decide you don’t want to give up. You see your friends investing, you see the market going up month after month, even during a pandemic and think. “Lets try this again”

So you get focused on learning how to trade stocks.

How did I do that? I started aiming smaller. Not batting for the rafters.

Did you know that Trade originated with human communication in prehistoric times. Trading was the main thing that our ancient prehistoric ancestors used to survive. They bartered goods and services, before the concept of money ever came about.

Now it makes sense why some of us want to “trade stocks” — we’ve been doing it since the beginning, and its in our DNA.

Now trading vs investing is very different. Investing is quite easy. Pick good companies, and hold. That simple. Follow the smart money. Follow what the big investing funds are doing. Follow the Warren Buffet method.

But with trading its a whole new world. You’re buying one second, you might be selling the next.

I learned that I needed a system, because buying and selling on emotion was too emotional and not working.

Warren Buffet says “You will continue to suffer if you have an emotional reaction to everything that is said to you. True power is sitting back and observing things with magic. True power is restraint. If words control you that means everyone else can control you. Breathe and allow things to pass.”

I wont go into my trading system. I’ll just say that mastering my emotions was harder than mastering a trading system. And I still struggle every day to keep my emotions in check. Keep in mind that you may never master a trading system or your emotions when it comes to trading, and that’s ok.

Here’s a big thing to take in. Trading is not for everyone. Investing, well, everyone should invest. And that's the big take away I am getting at. Not everyone should trade.

Figure out what works for you, and stick with it. Give it your all. If it works, it works. If only part of it works, figure out the part that does, and go with it. You got this!

• North