For example, imagine how you'd feel if - at the close of the market each day - a Brink's truck pulled up in front of your home and security guards unloaded dozens of bags of cash in your living room, representing your unrealized gains in the market that day. The next day, the truck pulls up again and hauls most of those bags away, representing your unrealized losses that day. If this continued week after week, month after month, you might get anxious about what was happening with your money. Even experienced poker players feel emotions as the pot rises and then gets swept away, over and over again during the course of an evening. In this case, however, we're talking not about a small-stake poker buy-in but your life savings. That's why some financial advisors suggest that you not look at your portfolio too often or, if you do, you not let it affect you emotionally. That's too much to ask, in my view. I look at my investment portfolio each business day, and I'll bet most readers do too. I've felt the excitement of big up days and the emptiness of big down ones. It's not possible to avoid feeling these emotions. We're human beings after all, not trading automatons. But there is a key difference between disciplined traders and investors and those who end up taking their lumps - and folding at the worst possible times. Both good and bad investors feel emotions. But good ones don't act on them, except in a contrarian way. For example, if I feel astonished at how badly the market has behaved lately - as was the case a year ago - I know that there are bargains to be had. However, that only matters if I have the willingness to take advantage of them. And that requires perspective. Successful investors understand that problems and setbacks are inevitable, unavoidable and unpredictable. But they have an abiding faith that a diversified portfolio will not only survive but prosper. So, yes, you have to understand a few things about business and the economy. You have to know a little bit about human psychology. And you have to use a proven system. But the biggest part of investment success is temperament. Get that right and the rest of the investing game is pretty easy. Good investing, Alex | 
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