These 4 Emotions Lead to Investing Mistakes

There's often little logic in the movements of the market, and it can be easy to make investing mistakes.

This is because stocks move at the whim of human beings, who can often be illogical and driven by emotions. Plenty of technical and fundamental analyses have been done on equities. However, one their most important influences is human psychology. Realizing this can help you learn how to invest better and avoid investing mistakes.

Psychology is a vital but under-appreciated element of stock trading. This is because most analysts are more mathematically focused. But those who ignore the human and social aspects of the market are making a serious mistake.

If you’re trying to raise money for your startup by trading stocks, it’s better to take a broad view. Of course you’ll want to study the market’s trends, but you might also want to consider boning up on a little Psychology 101, especially as it relates to your own trading style.

Let’s look at the four different emotions which influence most investors’ decisions. They are greed, fear, hope, and regret.

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Greed

Greed is the desire for money and wealth. When a trader experiences greed, they are only able to think about how much money they have made from a stock and how much more they can make by keeping their position.

The problem? You won’t realize a profit until after you have closed your position. Until this happens, a trader only has the potential for profit. Greed can lead to an investor holding a stock for longer than they should, hoping to make more money&hellip until it plummets.

Fear

Fear, which is probably the strongest of all human emotions, causes a trader to sell a position regardless of its price. Unlike other emotions, fear is a survival response.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) in the U.S. took from 1983 until 2007-24 years-to grow from 1,000 to 14,200. However, it only took two years to lose 50% of its value, between 2007 and 2009. That's the power of fear.

Fear can be beneficial if it gets you out of a poor trade. But it's dangerous when it causes investors not to buy a stock which would otherwise be profitable.

Hope

Hope, a feeling of expectation and desire, might be the second most dangerous emotion. It's what keeps a trader in an unprofitable position.

When a losing stock decides to go up, investors will often stay, in the hope of recouping past losses. This is dangerous because the market will do what it does, regardless of an investor's wishes.

Regret

Regret is a feeling of disappointment over something which happened. It can cause a loss of focus.

It's natural to regret making a bad trade or missing a good one. But an investor must simply learn from what went wrong and move to the next opportunity. This is the only way to ever learn how to invest better.

Know Thyself

Market psychology can be a very powerful tool. Traders usually just wonder if they should buy or sell a stock. Instead, you should watch the market for trends and then ask yourself, ''How are my emotions affecting my trading decisions?''

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Find the Best Mobile Plan for Your Home-Based Business

When you are starting a home-based business there is sometimes little or no point in having a landline phone. However, the chances are that you will still need a good mobile plan for a phone to use for your business. Whether it is customer facing or something you use to keep in touch with colleagues or contractors, you will want the best deal you can get. And you’ll want one that includes calls and texts as well as mobile data.

Finding the Best Mobile Plan

There are a few things you need to consider to find the best mobile plan for your company. For a start, the size of your company and number of staff need to be considered. Also how much you need to use mobile data will be something that you should factor in.

Use a Comparison Website

Many websites like Broadband Choices give you the opportunity to compare and contrast different plans together. All of the main providers now do business contracts, so you should be able to find one with a network that you know and trust.

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Don’t Be Afraid to Ask for Extras

If you do not see what you want on the mobile plan that looks the most desirable to you, you can always call the provider and ask them if you can make switches or changes. Some networks will understand that you might not need one part of the service as much as the other, and they may let you add more of what you need to cut something else out. Most likely, the staff will be willing to make allowances to keep an interested customer like you.

Think Ahead

Chances are if you are a home-based business, you have just started out. This means that your mobile contract will only need to be for yourself or maybe a couple of others. Talk through the contract terms with the network. Some are for a year, but there are others that are 18 months. If your company has grown significantly by then, will you have the opportunity to add more mobile handsets and contracts easily?

What Are the Current Offers?

Now that so many people are taking the plunge and working for themselves, business mobile phone contracts are commonplace. All of the large networks have now made sure they have at least one available business-specific contract available.

EE Business Value Plans

EE offers a number of different plans for businesses. The contracts start from as little as £23 per month with nothing to pay initially for the handset. You can choose between the latest Samsung and iPhone models. Further, most contracts have 2GB of data at least with unlimited calls and texts. Quite a lot of the plans for businesses on EE call for 24-month contracts. This would suit someone who knows what their business plan is longer term.

Vodafone Business Value

Vodafone also offers a business value plan for those small businesses which may only be a single entrepreneur or a couple of people working from a home. They start from £18 per month for 500mb 4G data and unlimited UK calls and texts. You can add extras to the Vodafone business mobile plan that will assist with the smooth running of your business day to day. For an extra £5 per month you can get unlimited roaming in more than 60 countries, for example, and they have an add-on insurance plan, too. This means they will replace your handset within 4 hours to any address in the UK should you experience a problem.

Three Business 900

The Three mobile business 900 plan gives small business customers an iPhone 7 handset with all-you-can-eat data. In contrast to the other plans, the data is unlimited but the calls and texts are capped. For £46.37 per month you get 1,625 cross-network minutes and 2,000 Three-mobile-to-Three-mobile minutes. You also get 1,150 texts and 100 landline minutes. The only drawback to this plan is that there is a £99 upfront cost. However, the plan includes quite a lot and the handset is fairly up to date.

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4 Ways to Become a More Disciplined Entrepreneur

There is no secret formula to entrepreneurial success. However, there are some common threads. One such thread is discipline. In order to achieve any sort of lasting success as an entrepreneur, you have to master the art of self-discipline and take control of your life.

The Noble Pursuit of Discipline

Discipline is a skill that has to be honed in every area of life. Whether it's your personal or professional life, you have to find a way to keep yourself moving in a positive direction, regardless of what's happening around you.

Discipline is what keeps you going when your willpower wanes and you begin to tire out. Whether you're training for a marathon, day trading stocks, or running a small business, discipline is the secret ingredient to success. As an entrepreneur, here are some specific ways you can cultivate discipline in your career.

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1. Make Commitments

Disciplined people don't just meander through the day and randomly pick and choose what they're going to do. They make commitments and use them to stay on track. If your goal is to increase sales this month, for example, you might need to make a commitment to placing 10 cold calls per day. If you want to hire the best possible candidate for an opening in your company, you may need to commit to interviewing 1 promising candidate per day for the next 2 weeks. In other words, seemingly small commitments make a big difference.

2. Prioritize Tasks

Commitments without prioritization is a recipe for disaster. Disciplined people always have a clear understanding of where different tasks rank and how to determine where time is best spent in various situations.

Using the previous examples of increasing sales and filling an open position, you need to prioritize in order to maximize efficiency. If the opening is for a sales position, it probably makes more sense that you prioritize hiring up front. That will allow you to more easily fulfill your sales goals on the back end.

3. Ask for Accountability

A lack of discipline can be tied to a number of unique factors. However, there's almost always some degree of accountability in play. People who consistently show that they're undisciplined, usually don't have anyone in their lives who will set them straight or correct their behavior.

If you want to become more disciplined, you might need to surround yourself with accountability partners. These are people who check in on you and make sure you're staying on track. When you have other people following up with you, it's much less likely that you'll step out of line.

4. Remove Distractions

''Although we'd all like to believe we have enough willpower to resist even the most alluring enticement, it only takes one moment of weakness to convince ourselves to cave to temptation,'' entrepreneur Amy Morin points out. ''Making it difficult to access those temptations can be pivotal to increasing self-discipline. If your weakness is Facebook, turn off the internet while you're working. If you can't resist overspending when you go to the mall, leave the credit card at home and only take a small amount of cash.''

Be honest with yourself and list your biggest work distractions. Once you've identified the culprits, you can then focus on taking the necessary steps to avoid these diversions.

Don't Put Yourself at a Disadvantage

Discipline isn't optional. As an entrepreneur, your success and failure will be directly tied to how disciplined you are in both the day-to-day tasks and the big picture. While you might be able to limp along for a while without honing this skill, you'll eventually fizzle out. Set yourself up for success or be willing to face the consequences.

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