Whether or you are an experienced trader or a novice investor, the most challenging skills in becoming successful is remaining objective and checking your emotions at the door when taking positions in exchange traded funds (ETFs).

One of the best ways to stay objective is to have a strategy you can stick to. It doesn’t matter what your investment objective is – having a strategy is advice that anyone can put to good use. Ours is:

• When a fund crosses the 200-day moving average, it’s a buy signal
• When it crosses below or 8% off the recent high, it’s a sell signal

Having these signals drive where you take positions can help you learn to set aside gut feelings and keep you from making impulse decisions based on fear. Whatever strategy you ultimately go with, it’s important to learn how to stick to it. Mistakes may be made, and if they are, acknowledge that you’re human, forgive yourself and analyze your behavior to see where you can do better next time.

Doug Hirschhorn of Trading Markets states that the key is to always know why you entered a trade and why do you like or dislike the position.  The more difficult it is for you to answer these questions, the higher the likelihood that you have lost objectivity.

To regain objectivity, address the fact that you lost it, clear your head and revisit what your original goals and objectives were, sit down and write pros and cons allowing you to evaluate the situation, talk to your self, ask yourself the two questions again and evaluate your answers with your original answers.

Kevin Grewal contributed to this article.

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