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Did you know, making the decision to become an investor and trader is exactly the same as deciding to take the leap and start a business?
How?
Because both have one requirement in common… the need for a BUSINESS PLAN.
It’s imperative when starting a business if you want that business to have any chance of success. So it’s imperative if you want to succeed as an investment trader.
That’s because you have to think of trading and investing as a business. It’s not some casual hobby you can pick up whenever you like.
This kind of thinking is a mistake in itself, but NOT having a plan is an even bigger one.
And we’re not talking some general plan in your head – this is a WRITTEN plan.
Because the plan is also your overall trading and investing STRATEGY.
Is your strategy going to be an oscillator one? A trending one? Short term timeframe? Medium? Long? Will you be a swing trader? Or end of day trader? All these things need to be written down; you need to know what you are with your strategy.
There are also a whole bunch of strategy “rules” you need to factor into your written plan.
Rules such as – at what point do you get in, where do you get out? Will you get out with a loss as well as a gain? It’s incredibly important to know that before you get into any trade.
It’s a mistake to think you can go in and say, “Right, what do I do now?” because the market has reacted. No, you need to know immediately – what is your strategy?
You need to know this in advance.
Where to invest, what do you invest in?
Cryptos? But then which ones – Top 5, Top Ten, Top Twenty?
The same with stocks and shares – which ones? Entire markets, sectors, industries or is it precious metals?
Then there’s the question, how much money to invest?
In other words, what’s your risk management?
Most people don’t have any risk management.
It’s another huge mistake.
Here at Investment Mastery, we only risk 1% of our entire portfolio.
If that sounds unbelievable for professional traders, well, all we can say is – this strategy has served us very well, for many years! And continues to do so (as just one look at any of Trades Of The Week videos will testify!)
But this still needs to be written down. Even we still have our plans written down.
There are many other “rules” to consider, such as what are you going to do when a stock goes up in price and then keeps moving sideways for a long time?
You need to know what you will do BEFORE it happens.
You will only know that if it’s in your plan and you have it written down and visible in front of you when doing your trades – literally, stuck on the wall in front of you or on your laptop so you can remind yourself instantly.
Even think about things like your trading environment, where will you trade? What time will you trade? How often?
These are all extremely important things to know before you go any further with starting your trading and investing venture.
But you know what? Do you think most people out there have a trading plan like this?
100% they don’t.
And then people wonder why they are not a successful as they’d like to be.
Not to sound harsh – but they don’t have a clue what they are doing. Seriously, you need to know what you are doing.
And it doesn’t have to be pages and pages… A ONE PAGE PLAN is all you need. But it is still a WRITTEN PLAN and that is the most crucial thing of all.
We’ll say it again – you need to think of trading and investing as a business.
It isn’t a hobby, you want to make money, this is a profit making enterprise with the markets doing all the work…
Which is why we love it so much.
You will too… once you have your trading and investing PLAN in place!
