What’s Your Trading or Investing Goal for 2016?
After my recent post about breaking bad money habits, Ithought it’d be fun to “flip the script” and focus on a more positive spin.That is: what are your investing goals for 2016 and beyond? You can resolvenegatively – to stop making the same mistake or falling into the samemisconception – or you can focus on a positive goal, something you want toachieve or make real. I got to thinking about this after reading Daisy Maxey’sarticle for the Journal, What Should Investors Do in theComing Year?
Your first goal might be to develop a trading or investingplan, period. It’s a refreshing and useful exercise to write out for yourselfwhat you’re trying to accomplish with your money, and then articulate your ownrules for getting there. If you find yourself stumbling or vague, that could bea valuable signal to tune in to. The best traders I’ve ever known have alwaysbeen remarkably crisp and honest about their trading plans, which they candescribe quite simply. They’ve compressed them to an impressively short“elevator pitch” that anyone’s child or grandmother could follow.
It’s worth noting that trading and investing plans are oftenon parallel, but not intersecting tracks. That is to say, many investors setaside one bucket of money to trade towards a specific goal, with correspondingrisk tolerance. Then they’ll have other buckets of money allocated towardsdifferent goals, often with a less or more active-trading spin and acorresponding difference in risk tolerance. Luckily, TradeKing has both activetraders and long-term investors covered with TradeKing Advisors. Take our online questionnaire and see if you can knock out one ofyour long-term financial goals – the first step is always the most difficultone!
Be Good,
CEO, TradeKing Group
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[image: happy holidays! by Melissa Brawner on Flickr]
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