How to Hang In and Make More Money When Other Investors Flee

Editor's Note: Volatility's back in a big way, but you can confidently weather market turbulence with the right tools in your belt. That's why we're revisiting these two tactics Sid first shared in 2014. They'll put you ahead of most investors while the Dow swings up and down. Here's Sid...

When markets hit rough spots, we see a spike in selling. No surprise there. It's natural; folks sense trouble and panic can set in, so they sell... and then sit paralyzed while desperately looking for a way back in.

Maybe you've made these moves yourself. I sure have. Most investors have, at one point or another, made a decision like this without a clear plan.

But here's the thing - if you sell, or buy, or make any investment decision without a clear plan, you're setting yourself up for steeper losses and lower gains.

But the good news is, with a simple plan like the one I'm about to show you, you can make better (read: more profitable) investing decisions.

And you can do it in two steps. That's it.

When you're done, you'll sleep better, enjoy better gains and fewer losses, and you'll be ahead of a whopping 85% of investors out there...

Investors Can Make Costly Emotional Mistakes

That "85% of investors" I mentioned a moment ago? According to Barron's research, fully 85% of investors who make "sell" or "exchange" decisions are flat-out wrong. Yikes!

The "Cycle of Questionable Decision" typically looks like this...

The market starts to sell off (for any number of reasons), then investors get spooked and sell their stocks right at (or just before) the point of maximum pessimism (which usually is very close to the bottom).

Once they're out of stocks, they take their cash and plow it into safe assets like bonds just in time to miss the beginning of the next leg up in stocks. Once their capital is invested in bonds, they have no idea when to shift back into stocks, mainly because of an emotional bias that leaves them too frightened to take on risk.

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If that sounds familiar, again, don't worry - you're not alone. Everyone has made this kind of mistake at least once, including, as I said, yours truly.

We'll just make sure it doesn't happen again.

Instead of using market pullbacks as an excuse to bury your head in the sand, you can step up your due diligence to create a "buy list" of your next investment targets.

At first it might seem uncomfortable to be preparing to buy stocks in the face of uncertainty - but don't worry - you're going to be in great company: Warren Buffett, Jim Rogers, and John Templeton all made their fortunes targeting stocks once they were put on sale by market volatility... so let's follow their lead.

Here are two steps you can take that will not only give you an answer to the questions at the top of this article, but will also let you use market volatility to your advantage, which is exactly what professional traders do every day.

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Step No. 1: Set Your "Sell" Plan... Before You Buy

Always make sure you have an exit strategy - a plan regarding when you'll sell - before you hit the "buy" button. This will ensure that you're always making predetermined strategic decisions rather than emotional decisions.

I'm going to share with you two of my favorite exit strategies. They're easy to use, and in fact, investing legend Jesse Livermore used them to build his own considerable fortune. They work.

They're trailing stops and scaling out of a position...

Most people think of trailing stops as a way to protect their downside. While they are great at minimizing losses, they really shine in capturing profits. As your position increases in value, simply tighten up your trailing stop to increase your potential profit.

Now, I recommend very specific trailing stops on the investments I make in my premium trading service, but it can certainly be done on your own, according to your own risk tolerance.

Personally, one of my favorite strategies is to: (1) begin with a 25% trailing stop; (2) once my position is up 30%, I like to tighten my stop up to a 19% trailing stop, which makes my stop 5% over my entry price; (3) once my position is up 40%, I'll tighten my trailing stop to 15%; (4) and once my position is up 50%, I'll settle in with a trailing stop of 12.5% for the remainder of the holding period - or until I get to a 100% gain, which is when I'll start scaling out of the position.

Trading Strategy

Legendary investor Jesse Livermore summed it up simply and eloquently when he said, "You never go broke capturing a profit." Exactly right, and that's why I like to tighten up my trailing stop along the way - especially the first move, which puts my stop 5% over my entry price.

It's worth mentioning, though, that once you tighten up your trailing stop, you do increase the risk of getting stopped out - but I'm totally okay with that because the tighter trailing stop also reduces my odds of letting a winner turn into a loser.

Livermore's second strategy is to sell half of any position once it achieves a 100% or more gain. Professional traders call this "scaling out" of a position. Livermore would refer to this simply as "playing with the house's money" because you effectively take your initial investment off the table and what you're left with is all profit - or the house's money.

The beauty of this strategy is that the freed-up capital created by scaling out of the position can then be used to establish a new position. If you do this a couple of times in a row, your initial allocation of capital can turn into several positions. It's a great way to build multiple positions with a single tranche of capital.

Just like trailing stops, you can choose to start scaling out of a position at any time. The key is that you know, in advance, when you plan on tightening up your trailing stops and when you intend to begin scaling out of a position.

Now let me show you what to do with all the money you can make...

Step No. 2: Rebalance Your Profits

Rebalancing is critical.

I can't emphasize enough how important it is to stay in the markets - and the best way to remain invested is to use the Money Map Report's 50-40-10 model.

In case you're not familiar with the 50-40-10, it is a risk-parity portfolio structure pioneered by Keith Fitz-Gerald, Chief Investment Strategist for the Money Map Report. Here's a quick rundown...

Trading Strategy

50% of your assets: invested in what we refer to as "Base Builders," which includes assets such as the Vanguard Wellington Fund, sovereign debt, muni bonds, corporate debt, etc.

40% of your assets: invested in what we refer to as "Growth and Income," which are stocks with global exposure to some of the world's largest trends, solid cash flow, rock-solid balance sheets, and an above-average yield.

10% of your assets: invested in what we refer to as "Rocket Riders," which is where you'll find speculative positions such as small-cap stocks. History suggests that by limiting your speculative positions to just 10% of your overall capital, you maximize your potential return while at the same time keeping your overall risk to a razor-thin level.

Now let's get back to rebalancing.

If you're using a predetermined exit strategy like the example I discussed above (or any other predetermined strategy, for that matter), you will, at some point, find yourself with cash to re-deploy. When that happens, calculate the different allocations between the Base Builders, Growth and Income, and Rocket Riders to find out what portion of your portfolio is overweight and where it's underweight. Deploy your freed-up cash into whatever portion of your portfolio is underweight.

Let me give you a simple real-world example to clarify the above.

For the sake of this example, let's assume your entire portfolio is worth $1,000,000, with the following breakdown: $500,000 (or 50%) is currently in your Base Builders positions, $390,000 (or 39%) is currently in your Growth and Income positions, $100,000 (or 10%) is currently in your Rocket Riders positions, and $10,000 is sitting in cash due to a recent winning trade.

In the example above, both your Base Builders and Rocket Riders are in line, with 50% and 10% of your total portfolio, respectively - but your Growth and Income (at 39%) is a little below your target of 40%, therefore it's "underweight."

In order to bring your 50-40-10 structure back in line, you can redeploy your $10,000 worth of cash into an investment that qualifies as a Growth and Income asset, and your portfolio structure will then be back to the desired 50-40-10.

If you don't want to redeploy the cash right away, that's fine. You can also wait for a predetermined time (quarterly, bi-annually, annually, etc.), and then rebalance all of your holdings at one time.

The key here is that it's a predetermined time - not a time based on your discretion, because that could leave you open to emotional biases, which typically work against you.

The beauty of rebalancing is that it takes all the guessing out of the equation because it forces you to sell the assets that have increased in value (and are subsequently overweight) and buy assets that have gone down in price (and are subsequently underweight).

That means you're following the golden rule of investing: buy low, sell high. And profit.

20 Triple-Digit Winners Last Year Is Just the Start

Keith Fitz-Gerald's Money Map Report subscribers who followed along with his recommendations took down 20 triple-digit winners last year - including a 201.68% return and 132.35% gain that closed out in the same week.

Two days into 2018, they closed another triple-digit winner worth 276.92%.

Each week, Keith shows everyday Americans how to tap into the world's biggest high-profit trends, ahead of the crowd.

There's nothing complicated or overly risky - and no guesswork involved.

Right now he's looking at another double-your-money opportunity, and there's still time to find out how to subscribe and access all of Keith's recommendations by clicking here now.

About the Author

Sid is the investment community's best-kept secret. Since 2009, he's served at Money Map Press as Director of Research, analyzing thousands of securities and profit opportunities for subscribers. He's an expert in identifying "alpha" potential in a wide variety of industries, but especially the small-cap sector, where he's discovered a pattern of profits that's almost foolproof.

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