Every time you execute a trade and it goes against you, the natural response is to feel bad. You are not alone. It happens to everyone. It happens most times. The most important thing to remember is that the stock market is there to serve you and not the other way round. With this point in mind, you should dust yourself up after a bad trade, throw yourself into searching the next opportunity (and there are numerous opportunities anyway) instead of whining over a bad trade.
Succeeding in the stock market
The stock market is full of opportunities, whether the market is headed south or north. You are tasked with the responsibility of identifying a great opportunity, board the vehicle while it is still on stage and then wait for the right time to reap fruits of good judgment. One mistake most uninitiated investors make is laying blame themselves for the wrong investment decision they make. Investment decisions often times, are characterized by elements of risk. In such a case, it would be important to assess your risk appetite before executing a particular investment decision.
Avoiding herd mentality
Interestingly, the stock market seems to have a mind of its own. This means that it can punish or reward investors at its discretion. Most importantly, this market rarely works with the herd mentality. If everybody is talking about a particular stock, a good practice is to ignore what they are saying. It is interesting that nobody really knows whether the market will go up, down or trade sideways. If some market participants are almost sure that a particular stock will go towards a particular direction, most times the market will disapprove them.
Patience is the magic pill
It may happen that you buy a stock and it goes into red position. After seeing a number of opportunities in the market, you are tempted to sale your stock cut losses and chase after the hottest stock of the time. Cutting losses is an important aspect of trading because you should have tolerable loss levels. However, some stocks only needs time to return to their profit positions and or surpass it. In that case, you will need to exercise patience to reap the benefits so long as your research on the stock is convincing to you.
Follow general trends
Whenever the general market trend is upward, stocks in the same industry tend to behave in the same manner. Following trends can reveal other opportunity that your eye may have been blinded earlier. Take time to understand volume dynamics of particular stocks and take advantage of these stats accordingly.
