Stock Doc: Markets and Mood Swings

If you have kids, think about ways to nurture their growth and affection for you. Plan an activity with them that you both love and can do together. Imagine their smiling faces before you come home to them. Take a "snapshot" of your own childhood and remember the happiest time you had with your parents. You can try to re-enact this same memory with your own child.

Even better, take a trip to your old high school or elementary school playground and try to soak in some of your own happiest memories as a child or adolescent. Seeing these places again as an adult can really remind you of how far you've come.

As for work, you are definitely not alone in being emotionally reactive to rapid market shifts. This is very normal as is the need to constantly check on the outcomes of trades. I had a client last week who was so obsessed with a trade he executed with Apple that he forgot to buy his wife an anniversary card. As bad as his anxiety was about that trade, his evening with his angry wife was far more unpleasant! Unless you are a professional trader, it is never helpful to micromanage a trade or your portfolio on a hourly basis.

If you are a trader, keep your focus during prescribed work hours and learn how to cut yourself off from data and information after hours. You can't change the outcome of trades once they've been executed, so you might as well engage in some positive self-reflection.

Your portfolio is only a part of your self-worth. You probably have many other commodities in your life worth being proud of that require the same focus and discipline. The key is to view your life like a portfolio of stocks or funds. If you over-invest your focus and emotion into work, you could leave yourself vulnerable to dissatisfaction and loneliness.

The advice for you is to diversify your life just as you would your portfolio, and to bring back all that used to mean something to you before making money became a priority.

Please write to the Stock Doc with your trading, emotional or investing dilemmas. Dr. Cass always welcomes comments and stories, for which he'll try to offer valuable solutions in later columns.