Three Stock Trading Myths

I’ve been a Stock Trader for over 15 years, and know the business inside and out. I didn’t start at a fancy brokerage firm with sophisticated training courses. Instead, I made my success my own way, failing here, tweaking there, using seminars and self taught classes to learn what I needed as I went.

While I may have taken longer to succeed using this self taught method, it has given me a lot more real world knowledge of stock trading than I would have gotten following the one process taught by my employer. For one, I have found a number of myths that crop up again and again when talking to people about stock trading. Here are three of them:

First, is the myth that only certain types of people make successful stock traders. True, those folks who can analyze stock trends and pick the big winners are typically left brained thinkers (more than 60%), which is probably how this myth originated.

But I have found that trading stock has something in it for every type of thinker, and the trick is to find the process that works best for you. Frankly, I would hate to sit around and analyze stocks all day, but I have made a great living trading stocks anyway. Anyone else can too.

Second, is the underlying belief that stock trading is risky, even riskier than owning your own business. True, people have lost their shirts in the stock market, and those are the big splashy stories we all hear that frighten a lot of people away.

But I have learned that it is a matter of setting up the right process to place your stops and limiting your risks to a level that you are comfortable with. If you can do that, stock trading is really a very low risk profession. For example, I have worked out a process that results in a 75% or more success rate with my trades. That is hard to beat, and you would be hard pressed to find another business that can give you that kind of low risk situation.

Finally, I hear again and again that to really make money in the stock market you must commit to it full time and then some. And I agree, this is absolutely true for some types of trading and particularly if you don’t have a good stock picking service. Then you have to do all the leg work in a fast paced environment. That does take a lot of time.

However, it is absolutely possible to make a great career out of trading stock for 2-4 hours a day, and having the rest of your time to do what you want. The trick is to have a process in place that is low risk and efficient with your time. How do you find such a process? There are a lot of courses available and it can be tricky to find the one that’s right for you. I advise you to investigate several options, ask questions (if there’s no one who will answer your questions, move on…life is too short to deal with bad customer service). Head into your research knowing the right process is there for you, and you will be on your way to success at stock trading in no time.