Let’s make a wager. You have five days to drive across the country. If you make it in less than five days, you will win $20,000. If you don’t, then you owe me $10,000.

There are some caveats to this deal: First, you have no map, compass, GPS unit or directions — nothing that will assist you on your journey. Second, there are no road signs; only mile markers.

#-ad_banner-#Are you still willing to blindly drive across the country risking $10,000 at the chance you’ll make $20,000?

In this scenario, it’s easy to tell that taking this bet is a bad idea, but this sort of blind gambling is indicative of how many average investors navigate the markets.

Most investors buy a stock and hope that it goes up. When it doesn’t and the stock plummets 20%, 30% even 50%, they continue to hold on… clinging to that hope that it will soon rebound.

Well I’m here to tell you: hope isn’t a strategy.

If there’s one thing you need to learn when it comes to investing, it’s how to invest with discipline. Go into the market like you would a regular road trip: a map in hand, a known destination, an emergency roadside kit, a spare tire, possibly a GPS and anything else you might need to make the trip as quick and efficient as possible.

When you want to invest in a stock, the first thing you must decide is: what’s your goal for this stock? How long do you plan on holding it? If it falls, at what price will you cut your losses? How high will you ride the share price up?

These are all questions you should answer before you ever purchase shares.

Otherwise, the fear of losing your hard-earned money will dominate your thoughts, deterring you from investing. Cash will sit in your brokerage account for months — all the while you have a nagging feeling that you need to invest.

Then, after hearing about a stock from a friend, neighbor, colleague or Jim Cramer’s Mad Money, you decide to dip your toe in the water and buy a few shares.

What now?

You eagerly watch your sole investment every day, bummed that even though the stock is up slightly, your brokerage account shows that you’re still in the red… damn commissions. A few months pass by, the nostalgia wears off and the daily scrutiny turns into the occasional, “Oh yeah, I should check on my stock.”

This is where it helps to have a plan or system. The investor I just described has no idea what to do next. Unsure of when to sell, if the share price drops, he’ll hold on and claim (to himself) that he’s investing for the long term… waiting for a rebound. No investing discipline, no map, no GPS… simply driving aimlessly hoping that he’ll find his destination someday.

But what if you had a roadmap that told you exactly when to buy and sell? Not only that, but what if this same system could flag stocks that had the highest potential to soar in the coming weeks and months?

This is precisely what my system is designed to do. It provides investors with instructions of exactly which stocks to buy and more importantly, when to sell.

For example, a few years ago the system tagged aluminum giant Alcoa, Inc. (NYSE: AA) as a “buy” after it traded sideways for nearly a year. Following its recommendation, shares rose 72% in 14 months.

And even better, after the system issued a sell signal, my readers and I locked in our gain and avoided Alcoa’s 20% drop that followed.

Recently, another company was flagged. It is a little-known firm that makes medical devices for aesthetic procedures, like the removal of tattoos and benign pigmented lesions.

I promptly alerted readers to buy shares, and since then the stock has soared.
 

Out of fairness to paid subscribers I can’t give you the name and ticker symbol of this stock, because the system still rates it as a “buy,” meaning there’s still plenty of upside left.

But by having this system at our fingertips, the plan is clear and simple: once the stocked is flagged as a sell, we will book our gains and move on. It’s that easy. Think of it like a “Profit-Targeting GPS” unit for the markets that gives you turn-by-turn directions. It helps you avoid the potholes, dead ends and traffic that come with investing.

If you’re tired of getting blindsided by the markets or you just want help getting to where you want to be financially, then I highly encourage you to give my Profit-Targeting GPS system a try. We’ve put together a quick fact sheet that will teach you everything you need to know about how it works. To access the fact sheet, go here.