Trade Like a Stock Market Wizard: How to Achieve Super Performance in Stocks in Any Market: How to Achieve Superperformance in Stocks in Any Market

by Mark Minervini

Trading stocks and running a business are virtually identical. In fact, to be successful, you must trade just as if you were running a business. As an investor, your merchandise is stocks. Your objective is to buy shares that are in strong demand and sell them at a higher price. How much of a profit margin you make will depend a lot on the type of business (portfolio) you are running. You may be like Walmart, which operates on very small margins but does a tremendous amount of volume with high inventory turnover. Or you may be like a boutique that offers unique and trendy merchandise and earns higher margins but does much lower volume. You may be making numerous trades for a small gain, but by sheer volume you turn in an impressive return at the end of the year. Or you may be a long-term investor with select merchandise that also produces a solid return. In the end, it all comes down to having your gains on average be larger than your losses, nailing down a profit, and repeating the process. This is the basic objective of any business endeavor. Most investors treat trading as a hobby because they have a full-time job doing something else. However, if you treat trading like a business, it will pay you like a business. If you treat trading like a hobby, it will pay you like a hobby, and hobbies don’t pay; they cost you.