3 Ways To Spend Lesser Time On The Stock Market

I have said this many times to my newsletter subscribers.

The stock market is a place to exchange money for more money, and NOT time for money.

In the stock market, the graph below is not true.

The more time you spend reading the news, or monitoring share prices on your brokerage account does not have a correlation to your investment returns over time.

In fact, I have said many times that time is the most important resource.

After all, you can earn back money but you can never earn back your time.

So it is so crucial that we don't spend too much time on the stock market, since it is not productive to our returns anyways.

And in this article, I want to share with you 3 strategies that you can use right now, to spend lesser time on the stock market.

1. Using LMT Order

The most simple yet effective strategy of them all, so that once you placed an order, you can have a hands-free, and most importantly, emotionless approach to your investment decisions.

Many times, I noticed people starting at the stock market price fluctuations whenever the stock market opens.

And I would ask them, "What exactly are you looking out for?"

They would reply, "The current price is at $70, and I am waiting for the stock to reach $67."

And I would say, "Why not just put a LIMIT buy order at $67?"

So what does a LMT order means?

A LMT order is defined as an order to buy or sell a stock at a specific price or better.

This means that the broker will only fill your order when the share price is available at a price that is better than your order price. Here's an example.

However, some people would say,

"Gin, what if the share price doesn't fall below $67, then I will end up not buying the stock!"

Here's what this means.

This is a common mindset among most investors, the "Fear of Missing Out" - all what its called FOMO.

But here's the thing.

We can never predict share prices in the short term.

So if your order is not filled, just let it go.

If we have already decide what is the entry price of our stock, then we want to be disciplined investor.

Remember that Warren Buffett said, 

So always be a disciplined investor, and not overpay for a stock because of the fear of missing out.

In investing, be it properties or stocks, we want to be discipline with our numbers.

This brings us to the next strategy.

2. Have A Profitable Watchlist

This has been an absolute gamechanger when a mentor of mine, who was a millionaire investor, shared with me the idea of having a profitable watchlist.

You see, investing is simple and straightforward, as long as we have the answer to these few questions:

1. What stock to buy
2. When to buy the stock
3. When to sell the stock

Here's how a profitable watchlist looks like.

In short, it is a list of quality companies that you know what is your entry price and your exit price.

Once you have this watchlist, all you have to do is to follow the profitable watchlist to guide your buying and selling decisions

And this is the basis of value investing, which is shown in this cycle.

This is a simple 5-step process:

1. Find Quality Companies
2. Buy Them Undervalued
3. Wait For Them To Reach Exit Price
4. Sell The Stock
5. Repeat The Process

 However, do you know which step that most investors struggle with?

Well, it is the step that requires you to do nothing.

That's right, its step 3: "Wait Reaches Exit Price".

The strange thing is that in investing, most people find like that they have to do something, which is actually counterproductive to their growth.

Its kinda like planting a seed in a soil, and digging it out every two hours, thinking to yourself, "why is this seed not growing yet?"

Investing requires patience.

And if a good rule of thumb I used is to be willing to wait for at least 3 years for the stock to reach its exit price.

Many make the mistakes of just waiting for a few months, and they just sold the stock for the sole reason because the stock price didn't move much. And a few years later, they saw the stock making incredible returns, but too bad, they have already sold it.

And you see, the whole point of this profitable watchlist, is so that you have a well-defined plan and all you have to do is to execute it.

The last thing I want to be doing is to spend hours scrolling through social media or forums, hoping to get some hot stock ideas...

Remember, investing is to exchange money for more money - and not time for money.

So when you already planned ahead your investments, all you have to do is to execute the plan and this will save you ton of time.

3. Focus On The Big Picture

Now - the big picture.

What if I told you that the whole purpose that I invest was not for money, but for time.

This perspective has kept me from spending too much time in the stock market, because it is deeply ingrained in me, that I don't want to exchange time for money.

You see, at the beginning of this blog post, I wrote that time is more important than money.

Because, you can always earn back money, but you can never earn back your time.

And the last thing that I want for people is to spend years of their lives chasing money, career progression or other materialistic objects.

However, with that said, money is still important - especially to provide for our loved ones.

That is exactly why I invest, so that I can get money out of the way, as soon as possible - freeing up time in the future to focus on things that I enjoy, such as writing this blog post that hopefully serve my readers.

And the reason why I am able to do what I do today was because I invested in my education.

As I am writing this blog post, I spent over $21,000 learning from millionaire mentors that taught me about investing and business.

Most people would say, "Why spend this money - you can easily find all these information on YouTube?"

Well, the answer again, is "time".

Its true, YouTube has ton of good information, but the truth is that has too much information. That overloading of information often gets people confused with a lost sense of direction.

Besides, I wasn't looking for information when I paid these mentors - I was looking for implementation, and I was looking for speed.

The reason why I spent so much money on my own self-education, because I knew that was the fastest way for me to get the required skill set to get money out of the way. And I would say that this had saved me years of my life.

What's Next?

The last thing I want for my readers, is to get drowned in information without a clear sense of direction.

This is why I created a free resource called the Stock Investing Hub.

I outlined all the information required to build your own profitable watchlist in this free resource.

While I am writing this, I know that among my readers, there are also the rare few who are action takers who want to implement what they learned.

So if you are an action taker, then you might want to check out the Profitable Watchlist Challenge, where you will discover the systems used to build a profitable watchlist quickly.

Here's the link to the Challenge:

So in short, those the three strategies that I personally used to spend lesser time on the stock market, and more time on things that actually matter.

Let me know in the comments which is your favorite strategy?

Is it to invest in your own education? 

Or was it to build your own watchlist using the Stock Investing Hub?

Leave a comment 🙂