TRADING POSITIONS TIP #4: DON’T PARTY WHEN YOU PLAY!
DON’T PARTY WHEN YOU PLAY: The market doesn’t care if you’re on vacation or goofing off somewhere. You must either get out of your positions before you leave or else monitor stock market action after the close of every day while you’re away at play. And if the latter is the case, you must also have the presence of mind to take clear decisive action when necessary.
Not everyone has the experience or discipline to play the market correctly while their mind is somewhere else. Therefore, cashing out or lightning up your positions before you take a real or mental vacation might be the smart way to handle this situation. Otherwise, your play time may end up costing you more than you ever imagined beforehand.
Comment: I know this first-hand from the days before the Internet and when I used to take cruise vacations every October. Back then I couldn’t make trading decisions while I was away on a cruiseship. And the stock market had a not-so-funny habit of always crashing with me aboard every October.
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“If a speculator is correct half of the time, he is hitting a good average. Even being right three or four times out of 10 should yield a person a fortune if he has the sense to cut his losses quickly on the ventures where he has been wrong.”
Bernard Baruch ~ Legendary investor (1870-1965)