This is why I feel most people can't (and shouldn't) be active traders going in and out of stocks. Not because they're stupid, but because many people overestimate their ability to keep emotion out of investing, and I'm not convinced the average investor has such a temperament.

Yes. Trading takes discipline. The Mechanical Investing (not like that on the Fool's Mechanical Investing board) that I do is supposed to take emotion out of trading, according to its proponents.

But emotion is still there, and it will always be. It just should not be the basis of any decisions.

The proper thing to work on is to get the emotion out of the decision making process. Unfortunately, few people talk about that.

My trading systems say not to trade tomorrow. Not that there is anything special about the day, but there are simply no trades. Will I not watch the market? Of course I will watch the market. Cannot help myself. But unless there is some dramatic development (e. g. the CFO of one of the companies disappears to parts unknown, leaving "unanswered questions"), I will not trade.