I have spent the morning sitting here mixing in some work on Excel and AutoCAD while observing the market calmly digest recent gains.

A common desire of the mind is to make money every day in the stock market, so it’s natural to get a little discouraged when witnessing a bunch of red littering one’s portfolio performance.

I have spent the past few years trying to sprint through the market…making short-term trades to try and bang out some quick profits.  Sometimes it worked, sometimes it did not…but the constant stress in addition to the fear of losing a profitable trade always had me “sashaying” in and out of stocks without regard for their longer-term prospects.

In 2013, I’m abandoning the short-term approach and looking for longer term positions; therefore I need to learn to embrace these inevitable days of red.

I believe the stocks that I own and am watching are going higher.  Maybe not today, hell, maybe not even this week…but eventually, yes.  If not, I’ll cut them loose and move on to the next idea.  Nevertheless, a bit of rational selling is what many of these names require to present me with a more ‘comfortable’ entry point.

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-EM