Taking Charge with Value Investing: How to Choose the Best Investments According to Price, Performance, & Valuation to Build a Winning Portfolio

CHAPTER 12Eliminating Emotion with Limit-Order Trades

The investor’s chief problem—and even his worstenemy—is likely to be himself.

—BENJAMIN GRAHAM

You may not realize it, but the more engaged you are with your investments, the more likely you are to return a loss. When I first began investing, I was the worst in the world; I watched every fluctuation of a stock throughout every day. I could barely focus at work because I was so worried about logging onto my online brokerage account to see how much I had either lost or gained. If it was a day when the market fell by 150 points and I lost $300, I was selling my stocks with no questions asked, regardless of the loss.

The interesting thing about this behavior is that I would become even more frustrated ...