Aim to Buy Low and Sell High!

Hi! How are you? Great, I hope.

We're getting very close to Christmas and the ensuing opportunity to start afresh with a brand New Year. It's likely you would like to use the remaining days of 2009 to lay the groundwork for greater long-term prosperity in the fast-approaching new decade - which technically should only start in 2011, but the transition from the two double-ohs to 2010 also seems like a great thing to latch on to as an excuse to celebrate and aim to continue to Get Better!

If you agree, then perhaps you might like to consider getting your finances in order so that you are able to put in place sound long-term strategies to take advantage of the one surefire principle of wealth building, buying low and selling high!

However, before any of us can do that, we need to courageously face whatever it is that keeps so many of us relatively poor during times of incredible opportunity. If this is something you're willing to do, then please read on...

Have you been on a roller coaster? I've been on terrifying ones in the US. After the screams – usually mine – have subsided, the sense of accomplishment is palpable. Well, investing intelligently in and through tough times is like successfully riding a wild roller coaster.

To benefit from the ups and downs of the market, we need to put in place intelligent saving and investing strategies that permit us to build long-term wealth using the one formula that's never changed, namely - as mentioned above - Buy Low and Sell High!

Unfortunately, our emotions often get the better of us! I ought to know; over the decades, I've lost money as markets crashed, and made money as those same markets recovered. Through all my travails, what I learnt was that when it came to riding the investing 'roller coaster', my emotions were not a reliable barometer. This was my problem:

When markets were high, I tended to get greedy and often felt the urge to jump in with even more money. When markets were low, I suffered pangs of fear and panic that caused me to want to bail out.

Over the years, though, I've ever so slowly learnt to re-engineer my thinking processes so that my emotional responses to market ups and downs are now often the exact opposite! That shift has vastly improved my investing batting average for myself and my financial planning clients.

What I've learnt is that the key to success in this arena is stripping away emotion from the process of wealth accumulation. I hope to write more on that subject soon, in this blog. In the meantime, though, if you have any thoughts of your own concerning 'buy low and sell high', please do leave a comment below.

You are always welcome to read some of my free articles on financial planning, goal-setting and time management at http://www.freecoolarticles.com/, or to help yourself to my free learning resources at my site's Gift Centre. Also, if you live in Malaysia, preferably in or close to Seremban and the Klang Valley, AND if you would like to consider using my services to attain long-term goals, you are welcome to learn about my financial planning, retirement planning or life planning consulting services by reading my bio. Thank you and take care.

Warmest regards,


Rajen


Rajen Devadason is CEO of RD Book Projects and its sister company RD WealthCreation Sdn Bhd. He lives in sunny, peaceful Malaysia with his gorgeous wife Rachel. He's a Malaysian Securities Commission-licensed financial planner, a life planning consultant, a professional speaker and a serial author... which probably explains why he's so exhausted! Some of his books are available here, and, if you're interested, here are some quotations he reckons are accurate, bold or cool.