A few weeks ago everyone thought the oil spill and British Petroleum ($BP) would cause the market to undoubtedly crash again. A few weeks before that the Goldman Sachs ($GS) story of federal investigations hit the press and yet again we thought the market would crash. Not too long before that the Toyota ($TM) recalls were issued leaving a great deal of mistrust in the automaker and yet again we thought this would surely cause the market to react.

Months before this dozens of other news stories hit the fan, from Fannie and Freddie ($FNM $FRE) to Lehman Brothers, from AIG ($AIG) to General Motors, and we thought it would change the entire economy, change the entire market, and cause mass chaos among traders.

It's funny how hard we have to think to recall some of these catastrophic market events, however at the time that the event is hot in the news everyone has it on their mind when they place their trades. A true professional trader knows how to read both fundamental and technical aspects of a company and understand the impact that news stories may have on a given company. The reality is most companies are able to survive just about anything as long as they are a strong and solid company. So many times a great opportunity arises on a fundamental front yet as traders we are just too scared to get into a position.

So next time a big story hits makes the news, will you be the one too scared to get into a position because you believe the over hyped newscasters whose job it is to make you interested in their show, or will you be the one who reads in between the lines and finds out the real news story and subsequently capitalizes off it?