​What Did the Market Do Today?

In a number of places and at various times, I've mentioned that trading in the past was a lot easier than it is today.

When it comes to making money over the long-term, the "instant results" generation is at a huge disadvantage. Most of the focus today (thanks to the business media) is on checking your financial scoreboard frequently. As a result, many modern market watchers are more like gamblers than patient traders and real investors. It's reached the point where most people will simply ask "What did the market do today?" to get a gauge on how markets are performing.

If you're a trader, you can know almost immediately how you are doing. If you are an investor, it's also easier than ever to access your brokerage account and check the status of your holdings. Market participants these days have the benefit of smartphones, tablets, laptops, and more all while "on the go."

We can't fight the trend of mobile access, but we should certainly pace ourselves. Realize the seeds we plant (in the form of long-term trades) do not need constant (hourly) monitoring. Instead, our trades are best left to accomplish their objectives without too much maintenance.

I suggest long-term traders make it a daily, or even weekly, habit to check on their trades. That way, you can stay on top of things without worrying about the false idol of overnight results.

Do you realize that it wasn't too long ago, that about the best you could do was to see the status of your trades in a daily newspaper? People made money then, and money can still be made that way, without the frantic interference, chaos, and confusion of intraday charts.

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