How to control your trading emotions

Trading brings out all kinds of emotions that just seem to get in the way and make it very hard to actually get anywhere.  If you want to succeed you must control your emotions.

Does this sound familiar to anyone?  You buy a stock that is trading at $50 because you believe the stock will jump up and make a good move, for whatever reason.  Then the stock starts to move down.  It moves down to $48, and you hear someone else talking about the company.

The news starts talking about how they might lose some big business partner in India and how it is the end of the world for this company.  You get scared and sell your stock for a small loss.

The next day the stock shoots up to $58 and you completely missed it.  Why because you let some people on the news scare you out of your trade.

So, how do you control your emotions when trading?  Well the simplest way is to have a plan.  If you have a plan that you believe in and will stick to it, regardless of what your emotions are telling you to do.

If you would have followed your plan on that above example the outcome could have been very different.  You would have stayed in and profited from the $10 point move in the stock regardless of what you herd.

Having a plan can be very helpful and allow you to have some control in the stock market.  Is it the only way to control your emotions and try to approach the market from a rational point of view? No, but it is probably the best way.

And regardless you must have a plan for trading if you ever want to get consistent results in the market.

For more information about the stock market emotions visit http://www.stocks-simplified.com/stock_market_emotions.html