For many different reasons, making money from home has become very popular. 2020 added to this, given that most of us were forced to work from home anyway due to the pandemic. In addition to a main job, or simply as a flexible occupation by itself, making money from home via stocks can be very profitable. As someone who has invested from the comfort of my armchair for many years, here are some of my top tips to try and help along the way.
Be disciplined
It’s easy to get distracted or caught up in irrelevancies when trying to make money from home. Stock investing requires a lot of reading, researching and understanding before you even come to buying or selling a share! So try and stay disciplined with your routine. If you’re waiting for the release of company earnings, have it in your calendar as a reminder. Or turn on notifications from your investment provider, so you can get alerts of big moves or breaking news.
Read widely
This will allow you to be focused on your plan of investing sensibly and sustainably for the long term. The reading and researching also lead to my second tip. You’re aiming to make money from home, but by being at home you’re probably alone. This makes it even more important to read and get a range of opinions on the stock in focus. Even if you’re a genius, getting other people’s thoughts on whether a stock is a good buy can lead you to spot something you might have missed. But it doesn’t mean you should follow every stock tip on internet forums! Check out reputable sources above all.
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Be in control of your emotions
My third tip is to be prepared for an emotional rollercoaster! Investing in stocks (especially with recent volatility) will give you highs and lows. Last year, we saw the FTSE 100 gain and lose several percent in a single day more than once. At an individual stock level, share prices were very choppy. As you’ll likely be at home for a lot of time, be careful about controlling your emotions. Don’t let investing take over your life, and be realistic. The aim is definitely to make money from stocks, but nobody wins all the time.
Cut losers, keep winners
This leads me to my final tip, namely that it’s important to know when to cut losers and hold on to winners. To make money from home via stocks, you just need to be correct 51% of the time. The long-term trend of the FTSE 100 over past decades has been upwards. So from my point of view, holding stocks for several years will give me a much better chance of selling the stock for a profit.
If I’d sold all my stocks when I was ‘losing’ in the stock market crash last March, I’d be kicking myself now. So having a longer-term viewpoint will allow me to ride out short-term slumps.
