With so much going on in your life every day, it can be difficult just to find the time to trade, let alone plan your trades. When you do, how can you decide what to trade? Pundits such as Kramer and his ilk always are going on about the latest hot stock. You could just blindly listen to them. ...or maybe you could just trade stocks of companies you like. Put your money behind companies that do what you consider good work. ...those are both terrible ideas without proper planning and insight, by the way. If tempered with your own trading plan as a check against whether said stocks fit what you've determined to be good trades for you, doing so can work just fine as a starting point. A trading plan is essential to the active trader. It'll help you stay on course with your personal trading goals and rules regardless of what the market is up to. A plan removes emotion when you hit a hot streak and start feeling unbeatable (a dangerous place to be); it keeps you on the straight and narrow instead of chasing high risk big wins that you normally wouldn't go after. At the same time, a plan helps remove some of the sting from losing trades, as well. Not every trade is going to be a winner, and a proper trading plan will take that fact into account and both help pad the ego from the losses along with keeping you from chasing high risk big wins to make up for lost ground. So if you haven't found the time to make a trading plan and you're just drifting to and fro in the markets, make time. ...then stick to those rules. Your portfolio and your nerves will thank you.   August's book is Money: Mastering the Game, by Tony Robbins. You can find it on Amazon right here, or check your local library. We'll be doing a live audience podcast on August 25 at 7 PM ET to discuss the book. You'll be able to join us right here: Podcast Room For your free 15 day Tackle Trading Pro trial membership, follow this link (https://tackletrading.com/join-pro/) and fill out the form with the coupon code being: theta Also, we'll be giving away a free month of Tackle Trading Pro membership to the best, most interesting review left for the podcast on iTunes! You can leave a review right here.