Between recent war escalation in The Middle East and more uncertainty surrounding rate cuts in 2024, it’s been a wild week for stocks and the markets overall.

Despite the whippy markets, I believe we could see a big turnaround.

Here’s why…

Next week is a huge week for earnings, and whatever happens could determine if we are looking at a healthy correction or the start of something bigger.

For me, I believe there will be healthy correction. But next week should be full of action in either direction.

In the meantime, with so much fear baked into markets right now I feel it’s important to reiterate the biggest lessons I learned to overcome my own emotions when trading.

Below you’ll see the 3 biggest mistakes I made before I created my own system that turned a $37,000 account into $1 million verified trading profits in 3 years.

Mistake #1: Trading With My Feelings

When I first started trading, I blew up a $10,000 account. That’s right – I lost $10,000 instantly. I still remember punching the hole in the wall immediately afterwards because I was so upset.

That should give you an idea of how well I handled my emotions back then.

Of course, the market didn’t care about my anger, fear or greed. The market’s only job is to react to variations and go one way or the other.

That might sound overly simple, but once you take out all the emotions and see the market for what it is, trading becomes a lot less mystical. And then you can start developing real, grounded strategies based on the reality of the markets.

For example…

There are times when a trade you’re in just isn’t working out. And the mistake amateur traders often make is they stay in. Fear comes into play because they hate the idea of taking a loss. So they’ll stay in, hoping the stock will turn around and their pain will go away.

The same thing can happen when a trade is working out. Beginner traders fall in love with the high, and they feel like the stock is always going to be that way. This causes amateurs to get too aggressive and fail to properly position size. Over time, this is always a losing strategy.

If you take one lesson away from this article, let it be this…

As a trader, you have to become calculating, just like the market itself. It doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the process, but you must see the market for what it is and not what your feelings tell you it is.

Mistake #2: Obsessing Over One Company (My Nightmare Story)

Back when I was trading penny stocks, I’d comb through all the articles on Yahoo Finance. I was that guy lurking in the background, buying into news hype.

I’ll never forget the first time I fell in love with a company. The ticker is still etched in my memory. It was G-H-3 International (GHTI). I put almost my entire account into this ticker. I saw all the glowing comments on various articles and thought, “This is a can’t-miss.” I was ready to tell all my friends how rich I was going to get.

You can imagine what happened next. The stock started to go down… and down… and down. The message board chatter dried up.

It turned out all the hype was just people pumping up a stock, putting money into it and selling it to idiots like me. And by the time I realized it, the culprits were already on their way to pumping another stock.

The lesson here is trading is not about finding the perfect setup and following the best indicators. It’s about understanding that you are your own worst enemy.

Now when I trade, I never look at a company as a long-term investment. I look for short-term investments that I can get in and out of… so I can make my money and enjoy my life.

Mistake #3: Not Having a Plan for Every Trade

Back in 2014, I was still struggling as a trader, trading “pump and dumps” and penny stocks.

There was one trade that I got in only because everyone else liked it. I bought in a little bit and kept adding and adding until I had a huge position in it.

Then disaster struck. The trade started going against me, and I ended up taking a huge loss. I lost $15,000 on that trade alone. I felt an incredible range of emotions… from anger to fear to anxiety.

Fast-forward to eight years later, and now I clearly know what I did wrong. I didn’t have a plan for the trade.

If you don’t have set targets for each trade you make, you risk giving yourself over to the market’s whim.

You’re no longer in control. You might get lucky and avoid a big loss on one trade, but eventually, you’re going to lose… and potentially lose big. This is where clear discipline comes in, and it’s one of the pillars of my TPS system.

YOUR ACTION PLAN

As I mentioned above, next week is going to be big. We have tons of stocks announcing earnings – and results could dictate the future directions of markets.

If you want to know exactly what to do next week when markets digest all this news, I have a special offer for you today….

I’m inviting you to join me for 5 straight days of FREE live trading ideas and market insights.

It’s all happening throughout the week of Monday, April 22, to Friday, April 26, in the FREE Daily Profits Live Open House.

You’ll get all the trades paid members get for 5 days at no cost to you.

You’ll have to hurry though – I go live at 9 a.m. on Monday, April 22.

Click here to sign up for my FREE Daily Profits Live Open House before it’s too late.