50 Tell-tale Signs of an Emotional Investor

Emotional investing is never a good strategy for investing. When you invest based on your sentiments, there is a fair chance that you can lose all of your money that you have invested. Before taking an investment decision, every investor should first ask himself ‘Am I an emotional investor?’

The list given below will give you an answer to this question.

You are an emotional investor if:

• You feel like cheering when you find out that the price of your investment has gone up even by a slight margin.
• You talk to your broker at least once a day to know his/her opinion about a particular investment.
• You start panicking if the money you have invested for one of your relatives goes down only by a slight percentage.
• You get excited when you hear about an investment from someone else even when you don’t know anything about the investment.
• You become all nervous watching the news about a company you have invested your money in.
• You stick to your computer screen, watching your investments for hours even when you have so many other things to do.
• When your stock is in the red, you just wait for the stock to rise again and the market trend to change.
• You call everyone you know to tell them about every small profit you make in the market.
• You pray continuously if your portfolio is not doing well.
• You start freaking out if it takes more than one second for your order to get confirmed.
• You start pounding the keyboard while investing in the stock market.
• You watch the stock market going up and down rather than watching a movie.
• Your friends have to console you after every rough day of the share market.
• You scream and yell at the TV while watching news about the share market.
• You get extra happy when you see the advertisement of the company you have invested your money in and tell the person sitting beside you to watch it every time it comes on TV.
• You double your position if you know that your stock has just been updated.
• You regularly tell everyone that you are going to be rich due to a particular investment of a specific company.
• You believe that you should quit your job as you have made enough money from your investment.
• You try to give investment advice to every person you meet citing your investments as proof.
• You sell your position if even a single analyst criticizes the investment.
• You regularly ask yourself ‘Why is this happening to me?’ if one of the investments falls by a slight price level.
• You throw a party or go out with your friends to celebrate every time you make a profit.
• You get angry every time the market is not moving according to your expectations.
• You pray to heavens before going to bed every night for the next day to be a ‘good trading day’.
• You blame your karma or your past sins if you incur a loss while trading.
• You put a stop loss at just 1-2% as you believe that you can’t bear significant losses in your investments.
• You don’t feel like eating if the value of your investment falls by a slight margin.
• After a bad trading day, you spend rest of your evening cursing your bad luck.
• You start to celebrate even before you have actually realized the gains.
• You become really angry the next day and believe you jinxed your luck after the same investment falls by 5% the next day.
• You stop talking to people who say that your stock picks are bad.
• You share screenshots of your investments with people on a regular basis.
• You constantly tell yourself that you don’t have to sell the investment even if it has been going down for months.
• You start screaming in happiness when you think your stocks are being bought by an institutional buyer.
• You call your family immediately to let them know that you have made a profit and constantly seek their praise.
• You feel like killing someone (or yourself) when you find out that your investment has tanked and you were holding it since it was at its peak.
• You feel proud while talking about your portfolio with someone.
• You go to your broker's office to thank him for his contribution every time you book a profit.
• You take extra measures, like drink coffee or make popcorn before the opening of the market as if it was something that you have been waiting for, for an extended period.
• You gather your whole family just to make them watch if your investment is going up in its value.
• You tell your broker to hold off the sale even if he says otherwise.
• You can’t sleep the night before if you have decided to buy a particular investment the next day.
• You don’t like to sell your investments as much as you like to purchase new ones.
• You refresh your portfolio page every 5 seconds even when you know nothing has changed.
• You start to sweat just because an investment is declining in value.
• You have multiple groups regarding the stock market at different social network platforms.
• You introduce yourself as a professional investor even when you have a regular job.
• You regularly quote your previous investment stories to tell people about something entirely unrelated.
• You curse the government or the Reserve Bank when there is a slight change in the government policies or interest rates.
• You advise people about the ways they can know they are an emotional investor because deep down you are an emotional investor yourself.