Are You Smart And Intelligent? Good For You. That Does Not Mean You Will Be Successful As A Trader

It is not that uncommon and strange to see many top intelligent and smart people, to fail miserably when trading in the markets. They believe and have such a great confidence that they will able to pull it off – since they have done it in many other areas and jobs that they have previously worked on – that they might get blind on how big is the challenge to “beat the market” (in quotes since I do not like that expression, I believe it is impossible to beat the market as a whole but might be able to pull small victories here and there).

Financial markets have the best of the best working at it every day for long hours. Do not think that you, with just one hour research every day, will be able to surpass and perform better than the guy that is living and breathing financial markets every single day of its life for at least 10 hours. It makes a huge difference. You still have hope, but you might have to adapt and change your trading strategies accordingly.

First, one book that I would like to recommend you reading is “One up on Wall Street: How to Use What You Already Know to Make Money in the Market” from Peter Lynch. It is a great book and will enable you to see the market different than you used to do it. In the book, Lynch also points out many different ways that you, as a sole and lonely investor, might be able to make some money in the markets in some not-popular territories.

Please notice the way the book title is written: it says “make money in the market” and not “how to beat the market”. I like this book and the simple way it presents the market and strategies to act upon it. It shows how you can, with your background, have an edge when trading specific and small parts of the market thus enabling you to beat that specific part of the market but not the market as a whole.