Just as with raising children or as in nurturing one’s career, “success” with personal investing allows plenty of room for subjectivity. After exploring the common opinion of prominent economic actors, established entrepreneurs and financial advisors, I have come to define a successful investor as someone who, with a moderate of time, devises an investment strategy to achieve financial and personal objectives and who gains access to competitive returns by undertaking a certain degree of financial risk. Upon a careful investigation of recent market trends, investing research and stock market perception, it becomes apparent that stock market-specific decision-making builds both on objective variables (unbiased reports, facts, financial figures, diagrams), and subjective factors, in other words, investors’ reactions to quantifiable market indicators (apprehension, haste, stubbornness, fear, greed, impatience, etc.). Especially among the ranks of inexperienced stock market investors, this overlap renders market actors prone to a number of investing mistakes, some bigger than others. In other words, quality decision-making in stock trading is not limited to staying up to date with the facts; it is more about learning how to perceive and interpret the information you get in order to come up with conscious, well-thought-out action plans. Even the most knowledgeable and intelligent stock market players can succumb to simple mistakes if they base their decisions on pure instinct instead of reasoning.
