10 Things to Do in a Slow Summer Market

1. Learn more about the stock market and trading, you can never know enough. However, when you are learning, remember to keep it simple. Since the summer is not a great time for investing in stocks it is a good time to learn. In the weeks to come, Stockscores will be offering a wide range of educational videos that you will be able to watch from your computer via the Internet.
2. Test new strategies. With some time off from trying to make money in the market you can take trading ideas you may have and test them. Create a spreadsheet and enter in the criteria for your proposed strategy. Go through a wide variety of stocks and see your strategy would have done over the history of those stocks. Use your findings to tweak the strategy so you can apply it when the stock market improves.
3. Sell the stocks that are going through support or giving other sell signals. If you love the company story you can always buy them back cheaper later. Practice discipline by listening to the message of the market.
4. Short some of the high flying stocks that will suffer when the stock speculators go away. Look for stocks breaking their long term upward trend line and sell those stocks chart in anticipation of a change of trend. Use protective stop losses at the resistance on the chart in case your read of the chart is wrong.
5. Read some books about investing psychology. I recommend Trading in the Zone and Reminiscences of a Stock Operator. Learning how to overcome your mental breakdowns is more important than any other skill you can develop.
6. Ignore the promotional garbage that companies send out to try and coax you in to buying their stocks. Trust only one thing, the market itself. If the chart says the stock is in the seller's control, stay away from it.
7. Take advantage of low prices due to seasonality. For example, Energy stocks often bottom out in August because of the cycle of that industry. If the market confirms that this is going to happen again this year, snap up the bargains.
8. Trade Alpha stocks. These are the stocks whose story is so hot that they don't correlate to the overall market index and will instead move on the strength of their story. Look for abnormal price and volume action to identify these stocks.
9. Laugh at your friends who suffer through the summer with their investments because they did not read this list.
10. Play with your kids, dog, wife, husband, friend or any one else worthy. The market slows down in the summer because most traders are out enjoying the weather. Join them.