Trading

The key to trading success is emotional discipline. If intelligence were the key, there would be a lot more people making money trading… I know this will sound like a cliche, but the single most important reason that people lose money in the financial markets is that they don’t cut their losses short.

Victor Sperandeo

It’s much easier to learn what you should do in trading than to do it. Good systems tend to violate normal human tendencies.

William Eckhardt

I think investment psychology is by far the more important element, followed by risk control, with the least important consideration being the question of where you buy and sell.

Tom Basso

Maximize the good, minimize the bad, and continually forgive yourself.

Don Miller

Losing money is the least of my troubles. A loss never bothers me after I take it. I forget it overnight. But being wrong – not taking the loss – that is what does the damage to the pocketbook and to the soul.

Jesse Livermore

If I have positions going against me, I get right out; if they are going for me, I keep them… Risk control is the most important thing in trading. If you have a losing position that is making you uncomfortable, the solution is very simple: Get out, because you can always get back in.

Paul Tudor Jones

Throughout my financial career, I have continually witnessed examples of other people that I have known being ruined by a failure to respect risk. If you don’t take a hard look at risk, it will take you.

Larry Hite

Throughout all my years of investing I’ve found that the big money was never made in the buying or the selling. The big money was made in the waiting.

Jesse Livermore

Some people say, ”I can´t sell that stock because I´d be taking a loss.” If the stock is below the price you paid for it, selling doesn´t give you a loss; you already have it.

William O´Neill

If you can’t change or control what the market is doing, then the only option you have left is to control yourself in a way that allows you to perceive what the market may do next with increased clarity and objectivity, requiring a thorough working knowledge of the nature of your inner environment in relationship to the outer physical environment.

Mark Douglas

Losing is part of trading. The best traders don’t get perturbed by losing trades, since over the long run they know they will be successful more often than not. When you
are afraid of losing, you end up losing or missing opportunities because you are afraid to trade.

Ari Kiev

In this game, the market has to keep pitching, but you don’t have to swing. You can stand there with the bat on your shoulder until you get a fat pitch.

Warren Buffet

By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail!

John Wooden

Don’t focus on making money; focus on protecting what you have.

Paul Tudor Jones

Trading is the most exciting activity that a person can do with their clothes on. Trouble is, you cannot feel excited and make money at the same time.

Alexander Elder

Most aspiring traders underestimate the time, work, and money required to become successful. To succeed as a trader, one needs complete commitment. Just as in any entrepreneurial venture, you must have a solid business plan, adequate financing, and a willingness to work long hours. Those seeking shortcuts are doomed to failure. And even if you do everything right, you should still expect to, lose money during the first five years – losses that I view as tuition payments to be made to the school of trading. These are cold, hard facts that many would-be traders prefer not to hear or believe, but ignoring them doesn’t change the reality.

Mark D Cook

The best traders I know are really quite brilliant, and they all work very hard – much harder than anyone else. By the way, when I talk about working hard, I mean commitment and focus: it has nothing to do with how many hours you spend in the office. These traders have tremendous commitment to the markets – to their craft so to speak. They develop scenarios, reevaluate scenarios, collect information and reevaluate that information.

Bill Lippshutz

To be a successful trader, you have to be able to admit mistakes. People who are very bright don’t make very many mistakes. In a sense, they generally are correct. In trading, however, the person who can easily admit to being wrong is the one who walks away a winner. Besides trading, there is probably no other profession where you have to admit you’re wrong. In trading, you can’t hide your failures. Your equity provides a daily reflection of your performance. The trader who tries to blame his losses on external events will never learn from his mistakes. For a trader, rationalization is a guaranteed road to ultimate failure.

Victor Sperandeo

People often say, ‘It’s not cheap, but I think it’ll keep going up because of excess liquidity (or any number of other reasons). In other words, they say, ‘It’s fully priced, but I think it’ll become more so.’ Buying or holding on that basis is extremely chancy, but that’s what makes bubbles. In bubbles, infatuation with market momentum takes over from any notion of value and fair price, and greed (plus the pain of standing by as others make seemingly easy money) neutralizes any prudence that might otherwise hold sway.

Howard Markes