There is an unfortunate belief among many people that doing well in the stock market (and other markets, for that matter) requires a great deal of work and loads of time. This is partly a function of those in the markets wanting to make what they do seem complicated, and therefore exclusive. The reality of the situation is that you do not need to dedicate your life to the markets to produce good results.

I will use myself as an example. In most years there are significant time periods during which my schedule of travel and other commitments prevents me being overly active in the markets. One particular year I added a six week trip between the end of May and the early part of July in to the mix as well. During the course of that year I did a total of about a dozen trades in the stock market. Want to know my return for that year? It was more than 200%.

Now you may be thinking this is an enigma. It isn’t.

Over about an 18 month period between 2002 and 2003 I was able to double the value of my retirement account trading stocks (I had to double it to make up for the beating the mutual funds I had been in prior to that had taken) necessarily using a much more conservative approach than in the example above. Again, that was done on a relatively small number of trades. Actually, I don’t normally make that many trades in any given year. If I get very far above twenty it’s rather unusual.

Obviously , I am not a day trader. I don’t get into and out of positions swiftly. My method is one I have formed over time which permits me to find stocks with good upside potential that I haven’t got to constantly watch. The positions I put on are planned to be held for weeks, if not months. That is the timescale when the biggest moves happen, so that is the timescale I need to trade.

The method I use incorporates all 3 first sorts of market research elemental, technical, and quantitative. Having said that, nevertheless I am able to go thru the stock selection process in one or two hours, at most. If there is not anything worth actually taking a look at, the entire thing can be done extremely quickly.

What’s more, if I have active positions on I will generally not be looking to enter any new ones. In that case, aside from a little bit of checking up to see how the stocks are trading and if there’s any important news, there’s very little to be done. I can literally trade my system in only a couple hours a month.

Now you could be announcing that I have got a great system. Perhaps I do. It definitely works for me given the inhibitions I operate under with my list. I do not consider it any major secret, though. In reality I printed it in detail in my book, The Necessities of Trading, so you are free to take a glance at it for yourself.

The crucial point here is that I was in a position to develop a trading style and system that will work for me. Any person can do that. It’s a query of making a fair self assessment and outlining an approach that fits in the parameters you have got for trading or making an investment in the markets. Perhaps you can day trade, or perhaps you are like me with little time to dedicate to finding good stocks to purchase.

Whatever the truth, you’ve got to do what does it for you and realize you can trade effectively with no regard for what kind of time you have got to put in to it.

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