Among some investor types, it seems that trading is taboo, and even un-American.

You will certainly get an earful from most financial advisors and planners about the perils of trading.  The standard mantra among these folks is “invest for the long term.”

They will tell you that it is nearly impossible to outperform the S&P 500, so just put your money in their managed portfolios, and leave the investing them.

They then proceed to underperform the S&P 500 because they don’t know how to trade.

Yes, trading is very difficult, and there is a steep learning curve.

But, the difficulty is more psychological than anything.  There are many ways to trade profitably, but most people don’t have the discipline to stick with a strategy that will work over the long run.

The reason for this is that most people don’t deal with losses very well.

As a result, they are willing to give up control of their portfolios, and accept mediocre performance, so that they don’t have to hold themselves accountable.

When they do make their own investing decisions, it’s usually with the same mindset they have when they go to Vegas.

Think it will just be luck if they make some money, thinking that the game is rigged against them.

The fact of the matter is that there are plenty of people around that trade successfully, and generate returns for themselves far greater than if they invested like most people.

Most investors vastly underperform the markets because they buy and sell at the wrong times, usually based on emotion.

Case in point… I’ve read tweets from some smart people who sold out their portfolios the day after the election in November.

And what has happened since?  The S&P 500 closed at about 3,369 on November 3rd, and today it sits at 3,824.

Does that mean it will keep going up?  My guess is that we are in the late stages of this bull market, but nobody can predict when the next bear will begin.

So, ride the wave until it’s time to step off.

Right now, as a hedge fund manager I worked for and I both agreed, it feels like 1999.  But, that is a topic for another conversation.

The point I want to make here is that, take more control over your life by learning how to trade.

One resource is my website Tactical Trading Research.  Or, you can pick up a few of the books I’ve listed here.

At the very least, do yourself a favor and learn all you can about the markets.  There are tons of resources out there, such as Investors.com and Investopedia.

You can thank me later.

Thanks for reading, now get to work!