Buying low and selling high is a rule of thumb that has wide application. Jon and Ian can tell you about how it pertains to the stock market... just don't ask them about it right now. It's not a good time if you know what I mean.

Buying low and selling high is also one of the basic tenets of fantasy football. For obvious reasons, it is even one of our FFChamps 10 Commandments.  However, it is easy to lose sight of this during the season and make rash decisions based more on emotion than common sense.  I answer close to 100 Team Analyzer questions from FFChamps users a week during the season and many of them are about potential trades that someone is contemplating. It never ceases to amaze me how often owners fail to heed the basic buy low, sell high principal. For instance, I had more than one user ask me this week about trading away Larry Johnson. Really!? Trading LJ after he rushed for two yards on seven carries? Absolutely not! You won't get fair market value in return. The key is to get more than market value in return. Trading Johnson a week earlier after he went for 198 yards and two touchdowns would have made more sense.

We'll continue to deliver a "Trade Bait and Prey" analysis each week here at FFChamps in an effort to aid in this decision making process. However, many situations are fairly obvious if you just look at the expected numbers vs. actual numbers for a given player. Just remember to continue using common sense rather than trading a guy out of spite. Buying low and selling high is the only way you will come out ahead on trades. Oh and keep in mind the other old credo: sometimes the best trades are the ones you don't make.