Investing is the art of waiting

"No matter how great the talent or efforts, some things just take time. You can't produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant." - warren buffet

Investors are too caught up in spending most of their time in technical and fundamental analysis, which are very important, but what's more important is to develop the art of 'waiting'.

In investing it's not the wisest, who makes the most amount of money but it's often the most patient one. By conducting thorough research on a company it is possible to predict whether a stock is going to go up or down in the long term. but, even after the most thorough analysis of the company, it's almost impossible to predict the exact time as to when the stock will perform. 

Now, many people would counter this argument saying, oh! I have known so many trade experts who have exactly predicted the date as to when a particular stock would rise. 

Now, there could be two reasons for this-

• The trader sold you a lie. Yes, you read that right. So, basically, there are millions of trade experts sitting on news channels, Now, to every stock, there is a bullish expert (someone who expects the stock to up) and there is a bearish expert (someone who expects the stock to go down). Now, under all circumstances, on every stock 1 of the two sides of trade expert is bound to be right. 
• The second reason is, the trade expert just got lucky. And the problem with that is - 'luck switches hands like no one else'.

In markets, it's important to have the patience to sit on a stock through all it's ups and downs till the time you have complete faith in the underlying business.

"Our favorite holding period is forever." -Warren buffet

There have been multiple instances in the market where the stock of a great company (with great profits and cash flow) did not go up for years. but then in a single year, the stock went up multi-folds. Now, that's a very important thing to understand. because as a retail investor you would never know when exactly would that moment of prosperity arrive but by doing thorough research on the company you can rest assured that someday or the other the stock is bound to go up.

To conclude, If there's a single trait that you absolutely should develop to become a successful investor, it is - patience.