Quick reminder - you'll want to check your email Sunday morning, because I'm going to send you our 2nd quarter forecast for the stock market. Back at New Years we forecast a top in January and then after it came called the exact bottom in February so you will want to see what we have to say on Sunday. This presentation will help you succeed in the stock market over the coming months.

Then next Tuesday April 6th we are going to open up our Premium Service to 500 new members. We'll have more details about that then.

Today I have something exciting to tell you.

I have a book out. No this isn't an April Fools joke. Last week Amazon listed a book I just published. It isn't a trading book though so I don't know if you are going to be interested in it.

It's a history book - I have a MA in history - about the history of the American South from the time period of after the Civil War to the 1950's focusing on the community that I live in.

I want you to know though that I was surprised at how rewarding it felt to have the first copy in my hands. It really gives you a sense of accomplishment.

I'm just going to let it is there and then start to promote it later in the summer. Probably in June or July. I just have too much stuff I have going on that I don't think I will have time to do it until then and I know I'll be busy with the new members that join next week.

I was more satisfied and happy to see the book then I thought I would be, because I feel like it is something really permanent. Its nice to think that a lot of people will be reading it, but I have lots of people that read what I write already and I can literally get 10's of thousands of people to read something I write about the stock market if I send it out to my free email list and let other financial sites syndicate it.

This is different because it's a book that I know people will read for a long-time. Most stock market writing is all about what is happening right now and gets dated rather quickly. Some people will be reading this book long-after I am gone.

I have some plans to put together a stock market book later this year about mass psychology and trading, because I think it is a topic that is pretty much neglected and as you know may be the most important thing when it comes to investing. There are less than half a dozen books that I know about that focus on personal trading psychology. And it can also be written about in a way that doesn't get dated. Think of it as an update to the trading psychology module with completely new material.

I had a goal of publishing this local history book over ten years ago. It didn't take me that long to write it, in fact almost all of it was written ten years ago - it's just that it has been sitting around for so long, because I've been busy with other things - mainly investing, trading, and writing about that.

So it is a nice feeling to accomplish such a goal that I set out for myself so long ago. In the end that is what investing and trading should be about - giving you the time and freedom to do other things too.

When it comes to investing I have found that over the years I set certain goals for myself - for how much I want to grow my account. I'm sure you may have a certain figure in mind for yourself too from where you want to get from here.

I've come a long way from starting out with 15k. Of course it has helped that I ran a hedge fund for a couple of years and make some money from this website, but if you look at it all I've made much more money from my own trading than anywhere else. In 2008 for instance I made 3X what this website business made me that year shorting the stock market. Really the website income has gone to pay my taxes - which has been a big help in the long-run.

Now what does this have to do with you?

I have found that if you look back on your investing and trading that you can chart out your account and it will look something like a stock chart with periods of resistance and support. Your account may have barriers where when it has gotten to that value it has repeatedly fallen off of it.

I know that this has been my experience.

When I first started trading in my mind I had this notion if I could turn my 15k into 50k then I would really be doing something. That 50k became the big barrier and tit took me a year to go through it. Then I got up to over 100k without a whole lot of trouble. Then 300k became a big barrier level for a few years. Then other big numbers acted the same way too.

What causes this?

For the typical person who has their money in mutual funds or with an investment advisor it is the stock market itself. The market itself has long-term support and resistance levels that can keep it down. Think now the S&P 500 at 1500 in 2000 and 2007 as key resistance or as the 700 level as support in 2003 and 2009 that put a floor on people's losses and would do so again if the market were to go into another bear market in the future.

But for someone who is an active trader there can be all sorts of reasons. It could be the same in simple support and resistance zones in the stock market - that would be true for instance for someone who is almost solely focused on a single sector in the stock market such as gold. They would have experienced even bigger booms and busts than the average buy and hold investor or the past several years.

Or it could simply be a situation where once you get a big gain from trading you get more aggressive and step things up - by going on margin or trading more frequently - only to have things backfire on you and knock you back down.

Nor does the cause have to be the same every time.

The best way to prevent this from happening though is to take some profits and get more cautious once you break something you consider to be a milestone level in your account.

This is one reason why I have been more cautious this year. I think the stock market being overbought now justifies being cautious right now anyway, but I have found that it is best to be even more cautious after you already have made a big trade in the stock market or are near a milestone level for your accounts or just broke one.

Another way to help prevent all of this though is through diversification.

Now what I mean by diversification is not different asset classes or a bunch of mutual funds as advocated by so called "portfolio theory" and pushed on people by most brokers and investment advisors, but diversification in investment strategies.

The problem with "portfolio theory" is that it doesn't work. When you simply just spread out in a bunch of mutual funds what you find out is that they ALL end up falling when the market is in a real bear market like we saw in 2008. You need to diversify in strategies, not just different mutual funds.

For instance you could have strategies of buying dividend stocks, buying growth stocks, market timing, or investing or trading in a sector that you know particularly well, or for trading in different time frames.

The model Power Investor portfolio in the premium service I have designed is really intended to be used for intermediate-term core positions. That is why there have been times when I have been in cash and yet still have those positions in the portfolio - I have mainly been doing short-term trading this year, because I have been more skeptical of the potential for big gains in the stock market this year and have been content to just make some smaller gains here and there. This is a strategy that not everyone wants to do, so the portfolio position can be used for longer term holding periods.

Every single stock in the portfolio is up from our entry point.

The stock market is there to help us achieve goals in our own lives - may they be financial, to help our family, or to even leave a legacy - not just with money, but by doing things that money or the free time it can give you can help you do. That's what the book I just published is about for me.

I'm sure you have goals of your own.

I really think that our presentation Sunday will help you achieve them.

Here is my book, awesome to see it listed on Amazon!

What are your investment goals? Sunday will help you achieve them.