I thought that by trading a lot, I could control my destiny. I would later find out that this cognitive bias is so common that there's a name for it; it's called “the illusion of control.” By buying and selling within minutes or hours of each other, I wouldn't be held hostage to the market. It's hard to put into words the level of dumb this line of thinking is. Overtrading is probably the most common mistake that novice investors make, and I was no exception.
