I’ve been an active investor for about 20 years of my life. In using either my tried and tested strategies, or trialing new ones, one thing I have realised is that the more an investment strategy makes logical sense, the more successful it tends to be.
There are so many investment strategies I get offered I could probably spend 2 life times working through them all. And a small fortune working out which ones don’t work. What I have found though is you can short cut this process simply by looking logically at them. Quite often when you robustly go through the logic of an investment strategy you will find holes in it. And big holes too, holes that will make you lose your money.
Its quite possible that these strategies, in their wholeness work quite well. But the problem is that if you are trading a strategy which has holes in it, at some stage you’ll come up against a real life situation where the strategy has no answer. Then you’ll be on your own and you’ll need to make a decision outside the strategy. This can be an educated guess, to an intuitive judgment call, to a flip of a coin.
If a trading strategy leaves you guessing, when you make these guesses, you are gambling. A proper trading strategy will leave no contingency for guesswork. It will cover all scenarios taking human error out of the equation. It will be systemised and complete.
This guess work also breaks down the functioning of a trading strategy. If you are guessing parts of it, or making decisions outside the guidance of the strategy, how can you be sure that the strategy is driving your results or your other decisions are? If you can not be sure of this, how can you have confidence in your strategy?
So if you have a new strategy which looks promising, apply your logic to it first. Try to understand all the trading scenarios you may face and ensure the strategy stands up to all of them and deals with them. This simple piece of advice could save you thousands.
And once you are happy with the logical analysis you have applied, don’t forget to dummy trade for a while too. In dummy trading you will probably find a number of scenarios you never thought of. This gives you the chance of ensuring the strategy deals appropriately with them too, without risking any money. Good luck.
After decades of profitable investing, Gnifrus Urquart enjoys discussing his favorite investment strategies and offering general investment guidance Don’t reprint this exact article. Instead, reprint a free unique content version of this same article.