Two Expectations For The New Year

Happy New Year! In my world, this means looking backwards over the year just past and looking forwards to set goals for the year to come. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal about GRACE provided the catalyst for my thinking herein about my own expectations in the coming year. Yes, this is about us individual investors.

Grace is a powerful word. It can become the cornerstone of both your personal and your financial life — thereby enhancing both simultaneously. Stay with me. For myself, grace is two parts. The first part is about how you interface with those around you. The second is about how you deal with your own personal issues. Let me briefly elaborate.

1. I'll label the first point as "External Conduct". Here, grace is represented by whether you deal honestly and ethically with other people. Is your moral compass consistently dialed in to represent your principles? Do you act in a decent manner as you interact with the world around you?
2. The second point is what I'll call "Internal Conduct". Here, grace is about seeking illumination and humility about your own short comings when things inevitably go wrong. Being willing to pursue a deep desire to seek reality with an objective mindset is the goal. In other words, hear what the markets are actually telling you — not what you want to hear. The purpose is to aspire to achieve 100% truthfulness, allowing you to be at peace with yourself and your decisions and thereby become the best version of yourself possible. 

I wish we could legislate grace but we cannot. My hope is that you embrace both external and internal grace to diminish your stress, make yourself a better investor and just perhaps make our planet a better place.

Here's to your future prosperity in the New Year!

Trade well; trade with discipline!

- Gatis Roze, MBA, CMT

StockMarketMastery.com

• Author, Tensile Trading: The 10 Essential Stages of Stock Market Mastery (Wiley, 2016)
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