You can be free. You can live and work anywhere in the world.
You can be independent from routine and not answer to anybody.
- Alexander Elder

Professionals expect prices to fluctuate most of the time,
without going anywhere far. They wait until an upside breakout
stops reaching new highs or a downside breakout stops making
new lows. Then they pounce - fade the breakout (trade against
it) and place a protective stop near the latest extreme point. It's
a tight stop, and their monetary risk is low, with a big profit
potential from prices returning towards the middle of the
congestion zone.
- Alexander Elder

“There is no such thing as luck. It is all mathematics.”
- Nico Zographos

To win in the markets, we need to master three essential
components of trading: sound psychology, a logical
trading system, and an effective risk management plan.
- Alexander Elder

The mental baggage from childhood can prevent you from
succeeding in the markets. You have to identify your
weaknesses and work to change. Keep a trading diary,
write down your reasons for entering and exiting every
trade. Look for repetitive patterns of success and failure.
- Alexander Elder

Over the long run, outcomes are governed by probabilities.
- Naved Abdali

Short-term price fluctuation is not the real risk. It is an opportunity.
- Naved Abdali

Confidence is not I will profit on this trade. Confidence is I
will be fine if I don’t profit from this trade.
- Yvan Byeajee

Markets are constantly in a state of uncertainty and flux and
money is made by discounting the obvious and betting on
the unexpected.
- George Soros

The four most dangerous words in investing are: This time it's different.
- Sir John Templeton

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

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

If you personalize losses, you can't trade.
- Bruce Kovner

Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.
- John Maynard Keynes
When I get hurt in the market, I get the hell out. It doesn’t matter at all where the market is trading. I just get out, because I believe that once you’re hurt in the market, your decisions are going to be far less objective than they are when you’re doing well.. If you stick around when the market is severely against you, sooner or later they are going to carry you out. - Randy McKay You don't need to be a rocket scientist. Investing is not a game where the guy with the 160 Ibeats the guy with 130 IQ. - Warren Buffet What seems too high and risky to the majority generally goes higher and what seems low and cheap generally goes lower. - William O'Neil The secret to being successful from a trading perspective is to have an indefatigable and an undying and unquenchable thirst for information and knowledge. - Paul Tudor Jones A peak performance trader is totally committed to being the best and doing whatever it takes to be the best. He feels totally responsible for whatever happens and thus can learn from mistakes. These people typically have a working business plan for trading because they treat trading as a business. - Van K. Tharp A lot of people get so enmeshed in the markets that they lose their perspective. Working longer does not necessarily equate with working smarter. In fact, sometimes is the other way around. - Martin Schwartz Every trader has strengths and weakness. Some are good holders of winners, but may hold their losers a little too long. Others may cut their winners a little short, but are quick to take their losses. As long as you stick to your own style, you get the good and bad in your own approach. - Michael Marcus Patience was an element that a number of the supertraders stressed as being critical to success. - Jack Schwager, The New Market Wizards Don't try to buy at the bottom and sell at the top. It can't be done except by liars. - Bernard Baruch I just wait until there is money lying in the comer, and all I have to do is go over there and pick it up. I do nothing in the meantime. - Jimmy Rogers Nobody ever lost money taking a profit. - Bernard Baruch The secret to success in the markets lies not in discovering some incredible indicator or elaborate theory; rather, it lies within each individual. - Jack Schwager, The New Market Wizards I made my money by selling too soon. - Bernard Baruch An investment in knowledge pays the best interest. - Benjamin Franklin In the beginning your aim should be to develop confidence and structure. Get comfortable with your trading strategy, develop good habits and discipline and be prepared to do whatever it takes to achieve success. It is critical that you avoid getting yourself into a situation where you are desperate and have to make money - this is the situation that more than any other seems to have the most destructive effect on a person and their ability to trade well. - Matthew Silvester, Schneider Trading Associates If a speculator is correct half of the time, he is hitting a good average. Even being right 3 or 4 times out of 10 should yield a person a fortune if he has the sense to cut his losses quickly on the ventures where he is wrong. - Bernard Baruch Becoming a great trader is a marathon not a sprint! - Abe Cohen I will tell you how to become rich. Close the doors. Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful. - Warren Buffett Novice Traders trade 5 to 10 times too big. They are taking 5 to 10 risks on a trade they should be taking 1 to 2 percent risks. - Bruce Kovner A good friend of mine always told me to make sure that you live to fight another day. That was invaluable advice. - David Helps Manage your risk, it will give you the staying power to succeed. In order to become a successful trader I believe that the key thing is hard work. When you begin you must immerse yourself fully in every single aspect of the job. You can never know too much. - Lawrie Inman Personally I feel success requires similar core traits and commitments, independent of the occupation. It is simply magnified in trading, because an individual’s survival does not rest in the hands of an employer, and perhaps more so, because our decisions yield rapid results, be them favourable or otherwise. With this in mind, I would advise traders that resilience, money management and emotional control are, in my experience, essential in achieving long-term success. I am firmly of the belief that at the opening stages of a trading career, it is not the technical know-how that most separates the level of achievement of the individual, but his/her ability to apply their plans in real time, and it is the above mentioned attributes the facilitate that. - Edward Arees Invest in yourself. Your career is the engine of your wealth. - Paul Clitheroe Strategies don't make money - people do. I have taught the same strategy to thousands of people, all of whom have achieved different levels of success - they did the same course in the same room with the same person and some of them at the same time. What is the difference? The person! - Nick McDonald, _Trade With Precision_ The one thing you can control is you. - Mark Douglas, _The Disciplined Trader_ You are the most important variable in the trading equation. - Mike Elvin, _Financial Risk Taking_ It's not how much money you make, but how much money you keep, how hard it works for you, and how many generations you keep it for. - Robert Kiyosaki It amazes me how people are often more willing to act based on little or no data than to use data that is a challenge to assemble. - Robert J. Shiller A successful trader is rational, analytical, able to control emotions, practical, and profit oriented. - Monroe Trout A stock doesn't know you own it. - Warren Buffett Wide diversification is only required when investors do not understand what they are doing. - Warren Buffett A market is the combined behavior of thousands of people responding to information, misinformation and whim. - Kenneth Chang One of the very nice things about investing in the stock market is that you learn about all different aspects of the economy. It's your window into a very large world. - Ron Chernow A loss never bothers me after I take it. I forget it overnight. But being wrong - not taking the loss - that is what does damage to the pocketbook and to the soul. - Jesse Livermore A good trader has to have three things: a chronic inability to accept things at face value, to feel continuously unsettled, and to have humility. - Michael Steinhardt I hate weekends because there is no stock market. - Rene Rivkin The most powerful investment of man is compound interest. - Albert Einstien Statistics are no substitute for judgement. - Henry Clay If stock market experts were so expert, they would be buying stock, not selling advice. - Norman Ralph Augustine As a bull market continues, almost anything you buy goes up. It makes you feel that investing in stocks is a very easy and safe and that you're a financial genius. - Ron Chernow It is preparation, as much as knowledge and research that distinguishes the successful stock picker from the chronic loser. Ultimately it is not the stock market nor even the companies themselves that determine the investor's fate. It is the investor. - Peter Lynch I don't know what the seven wonders of the world are, but I do know the eighth - compound interest. - Baron Rothschild Business is more exciting than any game. - Lord Beaverbrook Many people make the mistake of thinking that market behavior is truly predictable. Nonsense. Trading in the markets is an odds game, and the object is to always keep the odds in your favor. - Victor Sperandeo Probability is the very guide of life. - Cicero A losing trade that adheres to a profitable strategy is still a good trade because if similar trades repeated process will win on balance. - Jack Schwager, Market Wizards Gambling is taking a risk when the odds are against you, like playing the lottery or pumping silver dollars into a slot machine. Speculating is taking a risk when the odds are in your favor. - Victor Sperandeo The four most dangerous words in investing are 'This time it's different'. - John Templeton The only traders who shouldn't use proper position sizing are those who have a 100 win rate. - Steve Burns Almost all life depends on probabilities. - Francois Voltaire, Essays: Probabilities (1756) The moment you believe that trading is not about being right or wrong but about probabilities is the moment you can truly win as a trader. - Walter White In all games the difference between the amateur and the professional is that the professional plays the odds, while the amateur, whether he realizes it or not, is among other things a thrill seeker. Investment, too, is part a science and part a game, and just as in poker, you need to sort out your motives. - John Train The theory of probabilities is at bottom nothing but common sense reduced to calculation. - Pierre-Simone Laplace, Théorie Analytique des Probabilities The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet. - Danny Runyon Trade what you see, not what you think. - unknown Most traders take a good system and destroy it by trying to make it into a perfect system. - unknown If you're going to panic, panic early. - unknown At all levels of play the secret of success lies not so much in playing well as in not playing badly. - unknown The key is consistency and discipline. Almost anybody can make up a list of rules that are 80p as good as what we taught. What they can't do is give (people) the confidence to stick to those rules even when things are going bad. - Richard Dennis, on Turtle Trading The opportunity of a lifetime must be seized during the lifetime of the opportunity. - Leonard Ravenhill Experienced traders control risk, inexperienced traders chase gains. - Alan Farley The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent. - John Maynard Keynes Paper gains do not equal cash on cash returns. - Henry Joseph-Grant Entering trades is like a real battle - if you want to win it, you need to be ready and prepare for it. Markets are unpredictable, and you can’t predict every possible scenario, but what you can control is yourself. - Olawale Daniel A trader needs to be highly skilled and extremely lucky to beat the market consistently. If a trader is highly skilled but not lucky enough or extremely lucky but modestly skilled, he will beat the market occasionally but not consistently. Traders that are modestly skilled and modestly lucky will briefly beat the market but will be behind the market most of the time. Everybody else will lose money on a long-term basis, that is, 90p of the traders. - Naved Abdali Losses are necessary, as long as they are associated with a technique to help you learn from them. - David Sikhosana The goal of a successful trader is to make the best trades. Money is secondary. - Alexander Elder Stock market doesn't only teaches to make money but it also teaches lot about life, patience, persistence and wisdom. - Raj Mishra Trading doesn't just reveal your character, it also builds it if you stay in the game long enough. - Yvan Byeajee Focus, patience, wise discernment, non-attachment — the skills you acquire in meditation and the skills you need to thrive in trading are one and the same. - Yvan Byeajee I’m always thinking about losing money as opposed to making money. Don’t focus on making money, focus on protecting what you have. - Paul Tudor Jones It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently. - Warren Buffett In this business if you’re good, you’re right six times out of ten. You’re never going to be right nine times out of ten. - Peter Lynch I have learned through the years that after a good run of profits in the markets, it's very important to take a few days off as a reward. The natural tendency is to keep pushing until the streak ends. But experience has taught me that a rest in the middle of the streak can often extend it. - Marty Schwartz The desire for constant action irrespective of underlying conditions is responsible for many losses on Wall Street even among the professionals, who feel they must take home some money every day, as though they were working for regular wages. - Jesse Livermore 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 My first rule is not to lose money. Losing an opportunity is minor in comparison, because there are always new opportunities around the corner. - Burt Dohmen We must remove the emotional element as quickly as possible in trading. If you can do it before you put on a position, you have a good start. - unknown If you have a losing position that is making you uncomfortable, the solution is very simple: Get out.. - Paul Tudor Jones What is most important isn’t knowing the future - it is knowing how to react appropriately to the information available at each point in time. - Ray Daylio The biggest mistake investors make is to believe that what happened in the recent past is likely to persist. They assume that something that was a good investment in the recent past is still a good investment. - Ray Daylio The core problem, however, is the need to fit markets into a style of trading rather than finding ways to trade that fit with market behavior. - Brett Steenbarger I know where I’m getting out before I get in. Whenever I enter a position, I have a predetermined stop. That is the only way I can sleep. The position size on a trade is determined by the stop, and the stop is determined on a technical basis. - Bruce Kovner When you understand what’s involved in winning, as do professional gamblers, you’ll tend to bet more during a winning streak and less during a losing streak. However, the average person does exactly the opposite: he or she bets more after a series of losses and less after a series of wins. - Van K Tharp The markets are the same now as they were five or ten years ago because they keep changing - just as they did then. - Ed Seykota There are a million ways to make money in the markets. The irony is that they are all very difficult to find. - Jack D Schwager Being wrong is acceptable, but staying wrong is totally unacceptable. - Jack D Schwager To anticipate the market is to gamble. To be patient and act only when the market gives the signal is to speculate. - Jesse Livermore One of the best rules anybody can learn about investing is to do nothing, absolutely nothing unless there is something to do… I just wait until there is money lying in the corner, and all I have to do is go over there and pick it up.. I wait for a situation that is like the proverbial 'Shooting fish in a barrel'.. - Jim Rogers Patterns of price movement are not random. However, they’re close enough to random so that getting some excess, some edge out of it, is not easy and not so obvious — thank God. God probably doesn’t care. Thank whoever. - Jim Simons We search through historical data looking for anomalous patterns that we would not expect to occur at random. - Jim Simons Past performance is the best predictor of success. - Jim Simons I get real, real concerned when I see trading strategies with too many rules (you should too). - Larry Connors I have two basic rules about winning in trading as well as in life: If you don’t bet, you can’t win If you lose all your chips, you can’t bet - Larry Hite The most common bad habit I have seen in traders — good and bad ones — is the inability to react correctly to market action. - Larry Williams What you will be looking for is a day that closes above the prior day’s high and most likely ‘breaks’ out to the upside to close above a trading range. This is the twitching worm that causes the public to leap before they look. - Larry Williams Some of the best trades come when everyone gets very panicky. The crowd can often act very stupidly in the markets. You can picture price fluctuations around an equilibrium level as a rubber band being stretched — if it gets pulled too far, eventually it will snap back. As a short-term trader, I try to wait until the rubber band is stretched to its extreme point. - Linda Raschke An edge is nothing more than an indication of a higher probability of one thing happening over another. - Mark Douglas When you genuinely accept risk, you will be at peace with any outcome. - Mark Douglas The most important thing in making money is not letting your losses get out of hand. When I became a winner, I said, ‘I figured it out, but if I’m wrong, I’m getting the hell out, because I want to save my money and go on to the next trade. - Marty Schwartz Don’t worry about what the markets are going to do, worry about what you are going to do in response to the markets. - Michael Carr Being a successful trader also takes courage: the courage to try, the courage to fail, the courage to succeed, and the courage to keep on going when the going gets tough. Perhaps the most important rule is to hold on to your winners and cut your losers. - Michael Marcus Make good decisions even with incomplete information. You will never have all the information you need. What matters is what you do with the information you have. - Michael Steinhardt I believe in analysis and not forecasting. All a company report and balance sheet can tell you is the past and the present; they cannot tell future. - Nicolas Darvas The goal of a successful trader is to make the best trades. Money is secondary. - Alexander Elder Do more of what works and less of what doesn’t. - Steve Clark 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 to buy and sell. - Tom Basso As long as you learn something from a loss, it’s not really a loss. - Tom Basso I believe that good investors are successful not because of their IQ, but because they have an investing discipline. - Stanley Druckenmiller The desire to maximize the number of winning trades (or minimize the number of losing trades) works against the trader. The success rate of trades is the least important performance statistic and may even be inversely related to performance. - William Eckhardt I always tell my traders that they would’ve loved the 1990s because it was a fairly easy time to make money. It’s hard to find ideas that aren’t picked over and harder to get real returns and differentiate yourself. We are entering a new environment. The days of big returns are gone. - Steven Cohen If there’s a large move on significant news, either favorable or unfavorable, the stock will usually continue to move in that direction. (c: - Richard Driehaus If I find myself praying about a position, I liquidate immediately. - Mark Ritchie Successful traders tend to be instinctive rather than overly analytical. - Joe Ritchie This business is not about investing in great companies; it’s about profiting from inefficiently priced stocks. - Michael Lauer One thing I look for is companies with slowing revenue growth who have kept their earnings looking good by cutting expenses. Usually, it’s only a matter of time before their earnings growth slows as well. Another thing I look for is a company that is doing great but has a competitor creeping up that no one is paying attention to. - Dana Galante You have to be willing to accept a certain level of risk, or else you will never pull the trigger. You can’t be afraid to take a loss. The people who are successful in this business are the people who are willing to lose money. - Steve Watson The key to building wealth is to preserve capital and wait patiently for the right opportunity to make the extraordinary gains. - Victor Sperandeo I was particularly attracted to the concept of buying undervalued assets, which I became aware was not something that was confined to just leveraged buyouts. Every period of time has its own opportunities where one can find investments that are extremely discounted and have a very well-protected downside. - Claudio Guazzoni I grew up with the idea that, if not impossible, it was certainly extremely difficult to beat the market. And even now, I find it remarkable how efficient the markets actually are. It would be nice if all you had to do in order to earn abnormally large returns was to identify some sort of standard pattern in the historical prices of a given stock. - David Shaw There’s a temporal difference between speculative flows and price formation, and supply and demand flows. - Michael Masters I do not attempt to prognosticate the market. I react to what happens in the market. - Steve Lescarbeau During a difficult trading environment, your gains will be smaller and less frequent than during a healthy market. When this occurs, remember three words (with a nod to Nike): Adjust Do It! Always think of risk in relation to reward. You must adjust your risk as a function of potential reward. - Mark Minervini 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. - Mark D. Cook Simple logic: My top ten ideas will always perform better than my top hundred. - Ahmet Okumus Never make a bet you can’t afford to lose! - Alphonse Fletcher Jr When you’re trading well, you have a better mental attitude. When you’re trading poorly, you start wishing and hoping. Instead of getting into trades you think will work, you end up getting into trades you hope will work. I basically learned that you must get out of your losses immediately. - Randy McKay You can be following your rules exactly and still lose money. In that situation, you certainly haven’t performed poorly as a trader. - Howard Seidler It’s not the mathematical skill that’s critical to winning; it’s the discipline of being able to stick to the system. - Blair Hull The moral is that in trading it’s important to examine the situation from as many angles as possible because your initial impulses are probably going to be wrong. There is never any money to be made in the obvious conclusions. - Jeff Yass The people who excel in any field are people who realize that the moment is there to be seized and that there are opportunities at every turn. They are more alive to the moment. - Charles Faulkner You have to minimize your losses and try to preserve capital for those very few instances where you can make a lot in a very short period of time. What you can’t afford to do is throw away your capital on suboptimal trades. - Richard Dennis The key is to develop a case where the probabilities of the market going in your favour is greater than it going against you. - Adam Harris You have to identify your weaknesses and work to change. Keep a trading diary - write down your reasons for entering and exiting every trade. Look for repetitive patterns of success and failure. - Alexander Elder Beware of trading quotes. - Andreas Clenow It is always the best discretion to let the market show us where it is going and just simply follow (this would be prudent), rather than predict where the market is going and place a position (this would be gambling). - Anne-Marie Beiynd Stock price movements actually begin to reflect new developments before it is generally recognized that they have taken place. - Arthur Zeikel An investment in knowledge pays the best interest. - Benjamin Franklin In the short run, the market is a voting machine, but in the long run it is a weighing machine. - Benjamin Graham In trading/investing, it’s not about how much you make but rather how much you don’t lose. - Bernard Baruch If a trader is motivated by the money, then it is the wrong reason. truly successful trader has got to be involved and into the trading, the money is the side issue… The principal motivation is not the trappings of success. It’s usually the by-product - simply stated, the game’s the thing. - Bill Lipschutz If most traders would learn to sit on their hands 50 percent of the time, they would make a lot more money. - Bill Lipschutz Michael Marcus taught me one other thing that is absolutely critical: You have to be willing to make mistakes regularly; there is nothing wrong with it. Michael taught me about making your best judgment, being wrong, making your next best judgment, being wrong, making your third best judgment, and then doubling your money. - Bruce Kovner My experience with novice traders is that they trade three to five times too big. They are taking 5 to 10 percent risks on a trade when they should be taking 1 to 2 percent risks. - Bruce Kovner I don’t think you can get to be a really good investor over a broad range without doing a massive amount of reading. I don’t think any one book will do it for you. - Charlie Munger Timing, perseverance, and ten years of trying will eventually make you look like an overnight success. - Christopher Isaac Stone Losses are necessary, as long as they are associated with a technique to help you learn from them. - David Sikhosana Most people dont understand the process. They get frustrated by it. Dont Be. Focus - David Sikhosana Trade What’s Happening.. Not What You Think Is Gonna Happen. - Doug Gregory Before I enter a trade, I set stops at a point which the chart sours. - Ed Seykota I set protective stops at the same time I enter a trade. I normally move these stops to lock in a profit as the trend continues. - Ed Seykota If you can’t take a small loss, sooner or later you will take the mother of all losses. - Ed Seykota In order of importance to me are: (1) the long-term trend, (2) the current chart pattern, and (3) picking a good spot to buy or sell. - Ed Seykota Pyramiding instructions appear on dollar bills. Add smaller and smaller amounts on the way up. - Ed Seykota Risk no more that you can afford to lose, and also risk enough so that a win is meaningful. - Ed Seykota The trend is your friend until the end when it bends. - Ed Seykota There are old traders and there are bold traders, but there are very few old, bold traders. - Ed Seykota Trading systems don’t eliminate whipsaws. They just include them as part of the process. - Ed Seykota You don’t make money by trading, you make it by sitting. It takes patience to wait for the trade to develop, for the opportunity to present itself. Let the market come to you, instead of chasing the market. Chart patterns are very accurate. They have proven their accuracy and predictability time and time again, but you have to wait for them to develop. - Fred McAllen I hate how many people think, 'glass-half-empty' when their glass is really four-fifths full. I’m grateful when I have one drop in the glass because I know exactly what to do with it. - Gary Vaynerchuk It’s not whether you’re right or wrong that’s important, it’s how much money you make when you’re right and how much you lose when you’re wrong. - George Soros Markets are constantly in a state of uncertainty and flux, and money is made by discounting the obvious and betting on the unexpected. - George Soros Short term volatility is greatest at turning points and diminishes as a trend becomes established. - George Soros Accepting losses is the most important single investment device to ensure the safety of capital. - Gerald M. Loeb Money, if it does not bring you happiness, will at least help you be miserable in comfort. - Helen Gurley Brown An average trader loses money, so in this profession, you need to be way above average to make consistent money trading the markets. - Henrique M. Simões In order to win as a contrarian, you need perfect timing and the perfect size. - Henrique M. Simões In trading, the impossible happens about twice a year. - Henrique M. Simões The best traders have trading habits, daily routines they repeat day after day. - Henrique M. Simões Patterns don’t work 100 of the time. But they are still critical because they help you define your risk. If you ignore patterns and focus on hunches, feelings, and hot tips, just forget about achieving consistency. - Ifan Wei Take your profits or someone else will take them for you. - J.J. Evans Amateurs think about how much money they can make. Professionals think about how much money they could lose. - Jack Schwager Dangers of watching every tick are twofold: overtrading and increased chances of prematurely liquidating good positions. - Jack Schwager The hard work in trading comes in the preparation. The actual process of trading, however, should be effortless. - Jack Schwager There are a million ways to make money in the markets. The irony is that they are all very difficult to find. - Jack Schwager There is no single market secret to discover, no single correct way to trade the markets. Those seeking the one true answer to the markets haven’t even gotten as far as asking the right question, let alone getting the right answer. - Jack Schwager Sheer will and determination is no substitute for something that actually works. - Jason Klatt Don’t blindly follow someone, follow [the] market and try to hear what it is telling you. - Jaymin Shah You never know what kind of setup [the] market will present to you, your objective should be to find an opportunity where risk-reward ratio is best. - Jaymin Shah Never confuse your position with your best interest. Many traders take a position in a stock and form an emotional attachment to it. They’ll start losing money, and instead of stopping themselves out, they’ll find brand new reasons to stay in. When in doubt, get out! - Jeff Cooper After spending many years in Wall Street and after making and losing millions of dollars I want to tell you this: it never was my thinking that made the big money for me. It was always my sitting. Got that? My sitting tight! It is no trick at all to be right on the market. I’ve known many [traders] who were right at exactly the right time, and began buying or selling stocks when prices were at the very level that should show the greatest profit. And their experience invariably matched mine; that is, they made no real money out of it. [Traders] who can both be right and sit tight are uncommon. I found it one of the hardest things to learn. But it is only after a stock operator has firmly grasped this that he can make the big money. - Jesse Livermore All through time, people have basically acted and reacted the same way in the market as a result of greed, fear, ignorance, and hope. That is why the numerical formations and patterns recur on a constant basis. Over and over, with slight variations. Because markets are driven by humans and human nature never changes. - Jesse Livermore Do not anticipate and move without market confirmation - being a little late in your trade is your insurance that you are right or wrong. - Jesse Livermore I don’t buy long stocks on a scale down, I buy on scale-up. - Jesse Livermore I learned early that there is nothing new in Wall Street. There can’t be because speculation is as old as the hills. Whatever happens in the stock market today has happened before and will happen again. I’ve never forgotten that. - Jesse Livermore I trade my own information and follow my own methods. - Jesse Livermore Markets are never wrong, but opinions often are. - Jesse Livermore Only the game, can teach you the game. - Jesse Livermore Remember that stocks are never too high for you to begin buying or too low to begin selling. - Jesse Livermore The desire for constant action irrespective of underlying conditions is responsible for many losses in Wall Street even among the professionals, who feel that they must take home some money every day, as though they were working for regular wages. - Jesse Livermore The obvious rarely happens, the unexpected constantly occurs. - Jesse Livermore The reason for what a certain stock does today may not be known for two or three days, or weeks, or months. But what the dickens does that matter? Your business with the tape is now - not tomorrow! The reason can wait. But you must act instantly or be left. - Jesse Livermore There is a time to go long, a time to go short and a time to go fishing. - Jesse Livermore Watch the market leaders. - Jesse Livermore Hope is bogus emotion that only costs you money. - Jim Cramer I just wait until there is money lying in the corner, and all I have to do is go over there and pick it up. I do nothing in the meantime. - Jim Rogers Limit your size in any position so that fear does not become the prevailing instinct guiding your judgment. - Joe Vidich As much as possible you don’t want to be well paid merely for taking big risks. Anyone can manage that. You want to be well-paid because you did your homework. - Joel Greenblatt Time is your friend; impulse is your enemy. - John Bogle Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent. - John Maynard Keynes Successful investing is anticipating the anticipations of others. - John Maynard Keynes Stocks are bought not in fear but in hope. They are typically sold out of fear. - Justin Mamis If you want real insights that can make you more money, look at the scars running up and down your account statements. Stop doing what’s harming you, and your results will get better. It’s a mathematical certainty! - Kurt Capra By risking 1, I am indifferent to any individual trade. Keeping your risk small and constant is absolutely critical. - Larry Hite Frankly, I don’t see markets; I see risks, rewards, and money. - Larry Hite I have two basic rules about winning in trading as well as in life: 1. If you don’t bet, you can’t win. 2. If you lose all your chips, you can’t bet. - Larry Hite If you don’t respect risk, eventually they’ll carry you out. - Larry Hite 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 All you need is one pattern to make a living. - Linda Raschke If you can learn to create a state of mind that is not affected by the market’s behaviour, the struggle will cease to exist. - Mark Douglas What’s the difference between a pro and an amateur? Professionals look for what’s wrong with a setup. Amateurs only look for what’s right. - Mark Harila A great trader is like a great athlete. You have to have natural skills, but you have to train yourself how to use them. - Martin Schwartz A lot of people get so enmeshed in the markets that they lose their perspective. Working longer does not necessarily equate with working smarter. In fact, sometimes is the other way around. - Martin Schwartz By living the philosophy that my winners are always in front of me, it is not so painful to take a loss. - Martin Schwartz I always laugh at people who say, I’ve never met a rich technician. I love that! It’s such an arrogant, nonsensical response. I used fundamentals for nine years and got rich as a technician. - Martin Schwartz Trading is a psychological game. Most people think they are playing against the market, but the market doesn´t care. You’re really playing against yourself. - Martin Schwartz Don’t fight the Fed. - Martin Zweig It’s OK to be wrong; it’s unforgivable to stay wrong. - Martin Zweig Never, ever argue with your trading system. - Michael Covel I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game’s winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that’s why I succeed. - Michael Jordan Some people make shoes. Some people make houses. We make money, and people are willing to pay us a lot to make money for them. - Monroe Trout There is a saying that bad traders divorce their spouse sooner than abandon their positions. Loyalty to ideas is not a good thing for traders, scientists - or anyone. - Nassim Nicholas Taleb I believe in analysis and not forecasting. - Nicolas Darvas 5:1 risk/reward ratio allows you to have a hit rate of 20. I can actually be a complete imbecile. I can be wrong 80 of the time and still not lose. - Paul Tudor Jones Where you want to be is always in control, never wishing, always trading, and always, first and foremost protecting your butt. After a while size means nothing. It gets back to whether you’re making 100 rate of return on $10,000 or $100 million dollars. It doesn’t make any difference. - Paul Tudor Jones In this business, if you’re good, you’re right six times out of ten. You’re never going to be right nine times out of ten. - Peter Lynch The stock market is filled with individuals who know the price of everything, but the value of nothing. - Philip Fisher I’ll keep reducing my trading size as long as I’m losing.. My money management techniques are extremely conservative. I never risk anything approaching the total amount of money in my account, let alone my total funds. - Randy McKay How much of a role does luck play in trading? In the long run, zero. Absolutely zero. I don’t think anybody winds up make money in this business because they started out lucky. - Richard Dennis In the real world, it is not too wise to have your stop where everyone else has their stop. - Richard Dennis Trade small because that’s when you are as bad as you are ever going to be. Learn from your mistakes. - Richard Dennis Whatever method you use to enter trades, the most critical thing is that if there is a major trend, your approach should assure that you get in that trend. - Richard Dennis Markets form their tops in violence; the final 10 of the time of a bull run will usually encompass 50 or more of the price movement. - Richard Rhodes Are you willing to lose money on a trade? If not, then don’t take it. You can only win if you’re not afraid to lose. And you can only do that if you truly accept the risks in front of you. - Sami Abusaad The hard part is discipline, patience and judgement. - Seth Klarman Bull markets are born on pessimism, grow on skepticism, mature on optimism and die of euphoria. - Sir John Templeton I have been trading for decades and I am still standing. I have seen a lot of traders come and go. They have a system or a program that works in some specific environments and fails in others. In contrast, my strategy is dynamic and ever-evolving. I constantly learn and change. - Thomas Busby In trading, everything works sometimes and nothing works always. - unknown Look at market fluctuations as your friend rather than your enemy. - Warren Buffett The whole secret to winning big in the stock market is not to be right all the time, but to lose the least amount possible when you’re wrong. - William O’Neil Confidence is not I will profit on this trade. Confidence is I will be fine if I don’t profit from this trade. - Yvan Byeajee Focus, patience, wise discernment, non-attachment - the skills you acquire in meditation and the skills you need to thrive in trading are one and the same. - Yvan Byeajee The process by which one accumulates money is so simple, yet so hard to implement for most. - Yvan Byeajee Trading effectively is about assessing probabilities, not certainties. - Yvan Byeajee Time is your friend; impulse is your enemy. - John Bogle Dangers of watching every tick are twofold: overtrading and increased chances of prematurely liquidating good positions. - Jack Schwagger You have to identify your weaknesses and work to change. Keep a trading diary - write down your reasons for entering and exiting every trade. Look for repetitive patterns of success and failure. - Alexander Elder Sheer will and determination is no substitute for something that actually works. - Jason Klatt Short-term volatility is greatest at turning points and diminishes as a trend becomes established. - George Soros In trading, the impossible happens about twice a year. - Henri M Simoes The elements of good trading are (1) cutting losses, (2) cutting losses, and (3) cutting losses. If you can follow these three rules, you may have a chance. - Ed Seykota The trend is your friend until the end when it bends. - Ed Seykota If you personalise losses, you can't trade. - Bruce Kovner I'm only rich because I know when I'm wrong. I basically have survived by recognizing my mistakes. - George Soros. It was clear to me that other people could trade for a living, and if it was possible for other people to do it, then I could persevere long enough to figure it out. - Rob Booker Today, people who hold cash equivalents feel comfortable. They shouldn't. They have opted for a terrible long-term asset, one that pays virtually nothing and is certain to depreciate in value. - Warren Buffett The goal of a successful trader is to make the best trades. Money is secondary. - Alexander Elder. Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. - Albert Einstein The markets generally are unpredictable, so that one has to have different scenarios. The idea that you can actually predict what's going to happen contradicts my way of looking at the market. - George Soros The hard, cold reality of trading is that every trade has an uncertain outcome. - Mark Douglas Don't be a hero. Don't have an ego. Always question yourself and your ability. Don't ever feel that you are very good. The second you do, you are dead. - Paul Tudor Jones Events, circumstances, and experiences arise and pass away. Winning trades, losing trades, fear, greed, sadness, happiness, and eventually your own life. Everything is in constant flux. Learn to go through it with the stability of mind. meditation practice helps a lot. - Yvan Byeajee You need a well-thought-out plan which anticipates all potential scenarios to keep you from making impulsive and emotional decisions during market hours. You are being bombarded constantly with new information from peers, television, price action, websites, etc. Trading stocks is a business, and if you want your business to thrive you must have a plan which you execute flawlessly. - Brian Shannon Always be a student and keep learning. - John Murphy If investing is entertaining, if you are having fun, you are probably not making any money. Good investing is boring. - George Soros Every trader has strengths and weakness. Some are good holders of winners but may hold their losers a little too long. Others may cut their winners a little short but are quick to take their losses. As long as you stick to your own style, you get the good and bad in your own approach. - Michael Marcus A great trader is like a great athlete. You need to have natural skills, but you have to train yourself on how to use them. - Martin S. Schwartz A peak performance trader is totally committed to being the best and doing whatever it takes to be the best. He feels totally responsible for whatever happens and thus can learn from mistakes. These people typically have a working business plan for trading because they treat trading as a business. - Van K. Tharp Markets are constantly in a state of flux and uncertainty. Money is made by reducing the obvious and taking the risk on the unexpected. - George Soros When I get hurt in the market, I get the hell out. It doesn’t matter at all where the market is trading. I just get out, because I believe that once you’re hurt in the market, your decisions are going to be far less objective than they are when you’re doing well.. If you stick around when the market is severely against you, sooner or later they are going to carry you out. - Randy McKay 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 You can be free. You can live and work anywhere in the world. You can be independent of routine and not answer to anybody. - Alexander Elder The hardest thing to judge is what level of risk is safe. - George Soros What seems too high and risky to the majority generally goes higher and what seems low and cheap generally goes lower. - William O’Neil One of the hilarious things about the stock market is that every instance a person buys, another sells, and both think they are astute. - William Feather If you are not willing to own a stock for 10 years, do not even think about owning it for 10 minutes. - Warren Buffett It's not whether you're right or wrong that's important, but how much money you make when you're right and how much you lose when you're wrong. - George Soros In investing, what is comfortable is rarely profitable. - Robert Arnott If there is one common theme to the vast range of the world’s financial crises, it is that excessive debt accumulation, whether by the government, banks, corporations, or consumers, often poses greater systemic risks than it seems during a boom. - Carmen Reinhart It's not how much money you make, but how much money you keep, how hard it works for you, and how many generations you keep it for. - Robert Kiyosaki Financial peace isn't the acquisition of stuff. It's learning to live on less than you make, so you can give money back and have money to invest. You can't win until you do this. - Dave Ramsey Intellectual capital will always trump financial capital. - Paul Tudor Jones Amateurs look for challenges; professionals look for easy trades. Losers get high from the action; the pros look for the best odds. - Alexander Elder The markets are unforgiving, and emotional trading always results in losses. - Alexander Elder The market does not know you exist. You can do nothing to influence it. You can only control your behavior. - Alexander Elder Most private traders on a losing streak keep trying to trade their way out of a hole. loser thinks a successful trade is just around the corner, and that his luck is about to turn. He keeps putting on more trades and increases his size, all the while digging himself a deeper hole in the ice. The sensible thing to do would be to reduce your trading size and then stop and review your system. - Alexander Elder Nowhere does history indulge in repetitions so often or so uniformly as in Wall Street. - Edwin Lefevre Nowhere does history indulge in repetitions so often or so uniformly as in Wall Street. When you read contemporary accounts of booms or panics, the one thing that strikes you most forcibly is how little either stock speculation or stock speculators today differ from yesterday. The game does not change and neither does human nature. - Edwin Lefevre Traders focus almost entirely on where to enter a trade. In reality, the entry size is often more important than the entry price. - Jack D. Schwager The game of speculation is the most uniformly fascinating game in the world. But it is not a game for the stupid, the mentally lazy, the person of inferior emotional balance, or the get-rich-quick adventurer. They will die poor. - Jesse Lauriston Livermore A prudent speculator never argues with the tape. Markets are never wrong, opinions often are. - Jesse Lauriston Livermore A loss never bothers me after I take it. I forget it overnight. But being wrong - not taking the loss - that is what does damage to the pocketbook and to the soul. - Jesse Lauriston Livermore I don't read, much less follow, the valuations or predictions. I study the numbers. - John Neff Some of the best trades come when everyone gets very panicky. The crowd can often act very stupidly in the markets. You can picture price fluctuations around an equilibrium level as a rubber band being stretched - if it gets pulled too far, eventually it will snap back. As a short-term trader, I try to wait until the rubber band is stretched to its extreme point. - Linda Bradford Raschke There are too many unpredictable things that can happen within two months. To me, the ideal trade lasts ten days, but I approach every trade as if I'm only going to hold it two or three days. - Linda Bradford Raschke I believe that only short-term price swings can be predicted with any precision. The accuracy of a prediction drops off dramatically, the more distant the forecast time. I'm a strong believer in chaos theory. - Linda Bradford Raschke The good traders are the ones who can hold their ground the majority of the month and participate in that small handful of trades that are windfalls. The real skill is in not LOSING money! - Linda Bradford Raschke Speech may be silver but silence is golden. Traders with the golden touch do not talk about their success. - Linda Bradford Raschke I believe the very best money is made at the market turns. Everyone says you get killed trying to pick tops and bottoms and you make all your money by playing the trend in the middle. Well for twelve years I have been missing the meat in the middle but I have made a lot of money at tops and bottoms. - Paul Tudor Jones Don't ever average losers. Decrease your trading volume when you are trading poorly; increase your volume when you are trading well. Never trade in situations where you don't have control. For example, I don't risk significant amounts of money in front of key reports, since that is gambling, not trading. - Paul Tudor Jones Intellectual capital will always trump financial capital. - Paul Tudor Jones When your account has these massive swings up and down, there's a tendency to feel a rush when the market is going your way and devastation when it's going against you. These emotions do absolutely nothing to make you a good trader. It's far better to keep the equity swings manageable and strive for a sense of balance each day, no matter what happens. - Tom Basso Make sure you have an edge. Know what your edge is. And have rigid risk control rules. - Monroe Trout If you have an approach that makes money, then money management can make the difference between success and failure.. I try to be conservative in my risk management. I want to make sure I'll be around to play tomorrow. Risk control is essential. - Monroe Trout Trading provides one of the last great frontiers of opportunity in our economy. It is one of the very few ways in which an individual can start with a relatively small bankroll and actually become a multimillionaire. - Jack D Schwager Opportunities change, strategies change, but people and psychology do not change. If trend-following systems don’t work well, something else will. There’s always money being lost, so someone out there has to win. - Gil Blake, _New_Market_Wizards A trading philosophy is something that cannot just be transferred from one person to another; it’s something that you have to acquire yourself through time and effort. - Richard Driehaus The essential element is that the markets are ultimately based on human psychology, and by charting the markets you’re merely converting human psychology into graphic representations. I believe that the human mind is more powerful than any computer in analyzing the implications of these price graphs. - Al Weiss The markets are clearly not a random walk. The markets are not even efficient because that assumption implies you can’t make an above-average return. Since some people can do that, I disagree with the assumption. - Monroe Trout I have learned many things from him (George Soros), but perhaps the most significant is that it’s not whether you are right or wrong that’s important, but how much money you make when you’re right and how much you lose when you’re wrong. - Stanley Druckenmiller Understand that learning the markets can take years. Immerse yourself in the world of trading and give up everything else. - Linda Bradford Raschke The desire to maximise the number of winning trades (or minimise the number of losing trades) works against the trader. The success rate of trades is the least important performance statistic and may even be inversely related to performance. - William Eckhardt Good Money Management alone isn’t going to increase your edge at all. If your system isn’t any good, you’re still going to lose money, no matter how effective your money management rules are. But if you have an approach that makes money, then money management can make the difference between success and failure. - Monroe Trout To whatever degree you haven't accepted the risk, is the same degree to which you will avoid the risk. Trying to avoid something that is unavoidable will have disastrous effects on your ability to trade successfully. - Mark Douglas I learned to avoid trying to catch up or double up to recoup losses. I also learned that a certain amount of loss will affect your judgment, so you have to put some time between that loss and the next trade. - Richard Dennis The trading system gives the trader the ability to control his or her emotional states rather than allowing them to control him. system is a disciplined method for organizing dynamic, ever-changing market phenomena. - Howard Abell The essence of investment management is the management of risks, not the management of returns. - unknown Most of the time common stocks are subject to irrational and excessive price fluctuations in both directions as the consequence of the ingrained tendency of most people to speculate or gamble ... to give way to hope, fear and greed. - unknown My peculiarity is that I don't have a particular style of investing or, more exactly, I try to change my style to fit the conditions. - George Soros On the abstract level, I have turned the belief in my own fallibility into the cornerstone of an elaborate philosophy. On a personal level, I am a very critical person who looks for defects in myself as well as in others. But, being so critical, I am also quite forgiving. I couldn't recognize my mistakes if I couldn't forgive myself. To others, being wrong is a source of shame; to me, recognizing my mistakes is a source of pride. Once we realize that imperfect understanding is the human condition, there is no shame in being wrong, only in failing to correct our mistakes. - George Soros The markets are the same now as they were five or ten years ago because they keep changing - just like they did then. - Robert Koppel, The Intuitive Trader: Developing Your Inner Trading Wisdom The elements of good trading are cutting losses, cutting losses, and cutting losses. - Philip Jenks, (Editor) 500 of the Most Witty, Acerbic and Erudite Things Ever Said About Money To avoid whipsaw losses, stop trading. - Michael W Covel, Trend Following: How Great Traders Make Millions in Up or Down Markets Markets are fundamentally volatile. No way around it. Your prolem is not in the math. There is no math to get you out of having to experience uncertainty. - Michael W Covel, Trend Following It can be very expensive to try to convince the markets you are right. - Michael W Covel, Trend Following Systems don't need to be changed. The trick is for a trader to develop a system with which he is compatible. - Jack D Schwager, Market Wizards I don't think traders can follow rules for very long unless they reflect their own trading style. Eventually, a breaking point is reached and the trader has to quit or change, or find a new set of rules he can follow. This seems to be part of the process of evolution and growth of a trader. - Jack D Schwager, Market Wizards If you have trouble imaging a 20 loss in the stock market, you shouldn’t be in stocks. - John Bogle Reversion to the mean is the iron rule of the financial markets. - John Bogle Learn every day, but especially from the experiences of others. It’s cheaper! - John Bogle One should recognize reality even when one doesn’t like it. - Charlie Munger I remember the $0.05 hamburger and a $0.40-per-hour minimum wage, so I’ve seen a tremendous amount of inflation in my lifetime. Did it ruin the investment climate? I think not. - Charlie Munger Bull markets are born on pessimism, grown on skepticism, mature on optimism and die on euphoria. The time of maximum pessimism is the best time to buy, and the time of maximum optimism is the best time to sell. - Sir John Templeton The four most dangerous words in investing are ‘This time it’s different.’ - Sir John Templeton The basic concept that applies to both poker and trading is that the primary object is not winning the most hands, but rather maximizing your gains. - Jeff Yass As humans we do not come equipped to deal with the variety of randomness that is around us every day. Many professions deal with making processes and things work reliably. We are taught to strive for perfection, for high scores in school and in sports. This can be a handicap to traders. There is no perfection in trading. Instead traders must put probability in their favor. - Larry Sanders There is a random distribution between wins and losses for any given set of variables that defines an edge. In other words, based on the past performance of your edge, you may know that out of the next 20 trades, 12 will be winners and 8 will be losers. What you don't know is the sequence of wins and losses or how much money the market is going to make available on the winning trades. This truth makes trading a probability or numbers game. When you really believe that trading is simply a probability game, concepts like "right" and "wrong" or "win" and "lose" no longer have the same significance. As a result, your expectations will be in harmony with the possibilities. - Mark Douglas I know it may sound strange to many readers, but there is an inverse relationship between analysis and trading results. More analysis or being able to make distinctions in the market's behavior will not produce better trading results. There are many traders who find themselves caught in this exasperating loop, thinking that more or better analysis is going to give them the confidence they need to do what needs to be done to achieve success. It's what I call a trading paradox that most traders find difficult, if not impossible to reconcile, until they realise you can't use analysis to overcome fear of being wrong or losing money. It just doesn't work! - Mark Douglas _Trading In The Zone_ My philosophy is that all stocks are bad. There are no good stocks unless they go up in price. If they go down instead, you have to cut your losses fast ... Letting losses run is the most serious mistake made by most investors. - William O'Neil We typically trade our beliefs about the market and once we've made up our minds about those beliefs, we're not likely to change them. And when we play the markets, we assume that we are considering all of the available information. Instead, our beliefs, through selective perception, may have eliminated the most useful information. - Van K. Tharp, Ph.D. The more you understand the concept you are trading, how it might behave under all sorts of market conditions, the less historical testing you need to do. - Tom Basso The whole secret to winning in the stock market is to lose the least amount possible when you're not right. - William O'Neil I seldom see a system that over a number of years produces profits that are much bigger than the transaction costs it generates - that is, if a system generates a million dollars in net profits, then it probably generates more than a million dollars in transaction costs. - Van K. Tharp _Trade You Way To Financial Freedom_ To be a money master, you must first be a self-master. - J.P.Morgan True Trading Mastery derives from understanding the relatively small role technical analytical factors play in the overall trading process and the inestimatably important role that correct market attitudes and beliefs exert in facilitating a consistently profitable result. - Bob Koppel The best fertilizer is the farmer's shadow. This adage applies equally well to trading as it does to farming. Trading profits are cultivated in the rich soil of market discipline, strict money management and consistent adherance to a proven trading strategy. - Howard Abell You learn to distinguish the good traders from the bad, the successful techniques from the unsuccessful, and the good habits from the faulty. You also learn to distinguish the lover from the fighter, the winners from the losers, the serious from the frivolous, the cerebral from the superficial, and the friend from the foe. But above all, you learn that the psychological makeup of the trader is the single most critical element of success. - Leo Melamed The markets are not random. I don't care if the number of academicians who have argued the efficient market hypothesis would stretch to the moon and back if laid end to end; they are simply wrong. The markets are not random, because they are based on human behavior, and human behavior, especially mass behavior, is not random. It never has been, and it probably never will be. - Jack D. Schwager _Market Wizards_ If a trader hasn't neutralized his susceptibility to give his winnings back to the market, then he is not what I define as a successful trader. - Mark Douglas When you are in a losing streak, your ability to properly assimilate and analyze information starts to become distorted because of the impairment of the confidence factor, which is a by-product of a losing streak. You have to work very hard to restore that confidence, and cutting back trading helps achieve that goal. - Bill Lipschutz Buy on fear, sell on greed. - unknown Buy on the rumor, sell on the news. - unknown The trend is your friend. - unknown Amateurs want to be right. Professionals want to make money. - unknown If you want to have a better performance than the crowd, you must do things differently from the crowd. - Sir John Templeton If you expect to continue to purchase stocks throughout your life, you should welcome price declines as a way to add stocks more cheaply to your portfolio. - Warren Buffett If you are not willing to own a stock for 10 years, do not even think about owning it for 10 minutes. - Warren Buffett Wall Street is the only place that people ride to in a Rolls Royce to get advice from those who take the subway. - Warren Buffett If past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians. - Warren Buffett Our favourite holding period is forever. - Warren Buffett Stock market bubbles don't grow out of thin air. They have a solid basis in reality, but reality as distorted by a misconception. - George Soros The financial markets generally are unpredictable. So that one has to have different scenarios. The idea that you can actually predict what's going to happen contradicts my way of looking at the market. - George Soros Markets are designed to allow individuals to look after their private needs and to pursue profit. It's really a great invention and I wouldn't under-estimate the value of that, but they're not designed to take care of social needs. - George Soros You get recessions, you have stock market declines. If you don't understand that's going to happen, then you're not ready, you won't do well in the markets. - Peter Lynch Go for a business that any idiot can run - because sooner or later, any idiot probably is going to run it. - Peter Lynch Wall Street people learn nothing and forget everything. - Benjamin Graham Time is your friend; impulse is your enemy. - Jack Bogle We go to school to learn to work hard for money. I write books and create products that teach people how to have money work hard for them. - Robert Kiyosaki When I'm bearish and I sell a stock, each sale must be at a lower level than the previous sale. When I am buying, the reverse is true. I must buy on a rising scale. I don't buy long stocks on a scale down, I buy on a scale up. - Jesse Livermore The price pattern reminds you that every movement of importance is but a repetition of similar price movements, that just as soon as you can familiarize yourself with the actions of the past, you will be able to anticipate and act correctly and profitably upon forthcoming movements. - Jesse Livermore I never hesitate to tell a man that I am bullish or bearish. But I do not tell people to buy or sell any particular stock. In a bear market all stocks go down and in a bull market they go up. - Jesse Livermore It is not ours to be bullish or bearish, but to be right. - Jesse Livermore Education rears disciples, imitators, and routinists, not pioneers of new ideas and creative geniuses. The schools are not nurseries of progress and improvement, but conservatories of tradition and unvarying modes of thought. - Ludvig von Mises Price makes news, not the other way around. - unknown A market is going to go where a market is going to go. - Peter Borish I began to realize that the big money must necessarily be in the big swing. - Jesse Livermore Life is a school of probability. - Walter Bagehot A trader’s job description is stunningly simple: don’t lose money. - Richard Donchian Wall Street never changes, the pockets change, the suckers change, the stocks change, but Wall Street never changes, because human nature never changes. - Jesse Livermore I looked at myself as an athlete or a boxer in training who had to sacrifice many other things for the sake of success. - George Soros There are 60,000 economists in the US, many of them employed full-time trying to forecast recessions and interest rates, and if they could do it successfully twice in a row, they’d all be millionaires by now. Last time I checked they were all still working. - Peter Lynch The point is not so much to buy as cheap as possible or go short at top price, but to buy or sell at the right time. - Jesse Livermore I never argue with the tape. - Jesse Livermore There is nothing like losing for teaching you what not to do. - Jesse Livermore There are only two emotions in the market, hope and fear - the only problem is you hope when you should fear and fear when you should hope. - Jesse Livermore Whenever things didn’t come out as they should, I’d quit. There was no sense in arguing. The pressing need when one is wrong is to quit quick. I always cut short my losses. - Jesse Livermore The big money is in the big swing. And no matter who opposes it, the swing must run as far and as fast and as long as the impelling forces determine. - Jesse Livermore Nowhere does history indulge in repetitions so often or so uniformly as in Wall Street. When you read contemporary accounts of booms or panics the one thing that strikes you most forcibly is how little either stock speculation or stock speculators today differ from yesterday. The game does not change and neither does human nature. - Jesse Livermore Never try to sell at the top. - unknown Sell after a reaction (correction) if there is no (recovery) rally. - Jesse Livermore I cleared about three million dollars in 1916 by being bullish as long as the bull market lasted and then by being bearish when the bear market started. man does not have to marry one side of the market till death do them part. - Jesse Livermore It has always seemed to me the height of damfoolishness to trade on tips. - Jesse Livermore To make money in the market, I never buy at the bottom and I always sell too soon. - Baron Rothchild The smarter they are the easier it (the market) fools them. - Edwin Lefevre (Reminiscences of a Stock Operator) Cause of death: Acute bearishness in a bull market. Not an obscure disease. How did he come to contract it, with all his experience and skill? Because he was a human being. That is why the game beats them all. - Edwin Lefevre (Reminiscences of a Stock Operator) When investing, pessimism is your friend, euphoria the enemy. - Warren Buffett Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. - Mark Twain prudent investor’s best safeguard against risk is not retreat, but diversification. True diversification is difficult to achieve by spreading an investment among different stocks, or different equity managers, or even by mixing stocks and bonds, because the two are not complementary. - David Harding The chief cause of failure and unhappiness is trading what we want most for what we want in the moment. - unknown Experienced traders control risk, inexperienced traders chase gains. - Alan Farley My first rule is not to lose money. Losing an opportunity is minor in comparison, because there are always new opportunities around the corner. - Burt Dohmen We must remove the emotional element as quickly as possible in trading. If you can do it before you put on a position, you have a good start. - Day Trading Quote #15 Income earned by the sweat of your brow should be taxed at the lowest rates, not the highest. - unknown Capital gains should be taxed at a higher rate. - John Bogle The two greatest enemies of the equity fund investor are expenses and emotions. - John Bogle An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest. - unknown Learning is to the Studious, and Riches to the Careful. - unknown If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away from him. - John Bogle The idea that a bell rings to signal when investors should get into or out of the market is simply not credible. After nearly 50 years in this business, I do not know of anybody who has done it successfully and consistently. - John Bogle Your success in investing will depend in part on your character and guts, and in part on your ability to realize at the height of ebullience and the depth of despair alike that this too shall pass. - John Bogle The mistakes we make as investors is when the market’s going up, we think it’s going to go up forever. When the market goes down, we think it’s going to go down forever. Neither of those things actually happen. It doesn’t do anything forever. It’s by the moment. - John Bogle If the data do not prove that indexing wins, well, the data are wrong. - John Bogle Owning the stock market over the long term is a winner’s game, but attempting to beat the market is a loser’s game. - John Bogle Over the short run, however, the fundamentals are often overwhelmed by the deafening noise of speculation, the price at which the stock market values each dollar of earnings. - John Bogle Before costs, beating the market is a zero-sum game. After costs, it is a loser’s game. - John Bogle Reversion to the mean is the iron rule of the financial markets. - John Bogle What may work for the few cannot work for the many. - John Bogle I believe deeply and profoundly that speculation is a loser’s game. - John Bogle On balance, the financial system subtracts value from society. - John Bogle The miracle of compounding returns is overwhelmed by the tyranny of compounding costs. - John Bogle For finally, you can always count on Americans to do the right thing, as Churchill pointed out, but only after they’ve tried everything else. - John Bogle I will create value for society, rather than extract it. - John Bogle The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan. Stick to the good plan. - John Bogle If you lose the money, don't lose the lesson. - Trading Academy Seasonals can be defined as the up and down trends that occur at approximately the same time each year. These market trends reflect the normal change in the fundamentals of the supply/demand equation. - John L Momsen, _Ultra-Reliable_Seasonal_Trades_ (1999) I always say that you could publish my trading rules in the newspaper and no one would follow them. The key is consistency and discipline. Almost anybody can make up a list of rules that are 80 as good as what we taught our people. What we couldn't do is give them the confidence to stick to those rules even when things are going bad. - Richard Dennis, quoted in _Market_Wizards_ by Jack Schwager Everybody needs some sort of mechanical system. It enables you to take the difficult trades you wouldn't normally take on the seat of your pants. - George Angell, _18 Trading_Champions_Share_Their_Keys_To_Top_Trading_Profits_ We typically trade our beliefs about the market and once we've made up our minds about those beliefs, we're not likely to change them. And when we play the markets, we assume that we are considering all of the available information. Instead, our beliefs, through selective perception, may have eliminated the most useful information. - Van K. Tharp, Ph.D. Never rule out a goal because you think it’s unattainable. Be audacious. - Ray Dalio, Founder of Bridgewater Associates Some people get rich studying artificial intelligence. Me, I make money studying natural stupidity. - Carl Icahn I continued to ask questions, learn and grow, never accepting any limitations to what I could do, and this opened the sky for me. - Shaikha Khaled Al Bahar, Deputy CEO of the National Bank of Kuwait Group, 2023 When you give out free money people do stupid things. - unknown When you give out free money for 15 years, people do really, really stupid things. - Stan Drukenmiller Today, people who hold cash equivalents feel comfortable. They shouldn't. They have opted for a terrible long-term asset, one that pays virtually nothing and is certain to depreciate in value. - Warren Buffett I visited Walton, a Canadian expatriate, at his office in downtown San Francisco. I discovered that, although managing a nine-digit sum, he had no trading assistants, no back office staff, no marketing people, no pro- grammers, not even a full-time secretary. His firm, Reindeer Capital, consisted of Stuart Walton alone. His isolation was deliberate. After hav- ing gone wrong so often by listening to tips and opinions, he had come to realize the importance of not being influenced by others while trading. - Stock Market Wizards (Schwager) on Stuart Walton But once I had the money I thought, "I'm not going to put this into some boring dividend play to make a few dollars on the spread between the dividend income and my loan rate." - Stock Market Wizards (Schwager) quoting Stuart Walton This was really the first time in your life that you were trading stocks with any success. What types of things were working? The theme I noticed back then that has persisted through bull and bear markets is: Good companies, on balance, continue to go up. Grandmothers in Kansas City know that. - Stock Market Wizards (Schwager) interviewing Stuart Walton What are you looking at on the technical side? I like stocks that show relative linearity in their trend. I don't want stocks that are swinging all over the place. - Stock Market Wizards (Schwager) interviewing Stuart Walton The last 25 percent is my gut feeling for the direction of the market as a whole, which is based on my sense of how the market is responding to macroeconomic news and other events. It's almost like looking at the entire market as if it were an individual stock. - Stock Market Wizards (Schwager) quoting Stuart Walton What are the trading rules you have posted on your computer? > Be patient—wait for the opportunity. > Trade on your own ideas and style. > Never trade impulsively, especially on other people's advice. > Don't risk too much on one event or company. > Stay focused, especially when the markets are moving. > Anticipate, don't react. > Listen to the market, not outside opinions. > Think trades through, including profit/loss exit points, before you put them on. > If you are unsure about a position, just get out. > Force yourself to trade against the consensus. > Trade pattern recognition. > Look past tomorrow; develop a six-month and one-year outlook. > Prices move before fundamentals. > It is a warning flag if the market is not responding to data correctly. > Be totally flexible; be able to admit when you are wrong. > You will be wrong often; recognize winners and losers fast. > Start each day from last night's close, not your original cost. > Adding to losers is easy but usually wrong. > Force yourself to buy on extreme weakness and sell on extreme strength. > Get rid of all distractions. > Remain confident — the opportunities never stop. - Stock Market Wizards (Schwager) interviewing Stuart Walton After you reach a certain level of financial success, what is the motivation to keep on going? The challenge of performance and the tremendous satisfaction I get from knowing that 1 contributed to people's financial security. It's fan- tastic. I have a lot of clients, some of whom are my own age, who I have been able to lead to total financial independence. - Stock Market Wizards (Schwager) interviewing Stuart Walton Cook's early attempts at trading were marked by repeated setbacks, experiences he relates in the interview. Cook, however, never gave up. Each failure only made him work harder. Finally, after many years of carefully tracking the stock market, filling volumes of market diaries, and assiduously recording and analyzing every trade he made, his trading became consistently profitable. - Stock Market Wizards (Schwager) chapter on Mark D. Cook By the time I was hired as a stockbroker in 1979, I had studied options quite thoroughly. I started trading options again, but I still kept losing money steadily. I analyzed my trades and found that I was losing money because I was holding on to options for several weeks or longer, and they would end up going to zero. 1 realized that the money I had lost had been made by the traders who sold the options that I bought. I decided from that point on, I would only sell options. I adopted a strategy of simultaneously selling both the calls and puts in high-volatility stocks. - Stock Market Wizards (Schwager) quoting Mark D. Cook What advice would you give to other traders about handling losing situations? Hope should never be in your vocabulary. It is the worst four-letter word I know. As soon as you say, "Boy, I hope this position comes back," you should reduce your size. - Stock Market Wizards (Schwager) chapter on Mark D. Cook A leading authority is anyone who has guessed right more than once. - Frank Clark "I feel my success comes from my love of the markets. I am not a casual trader. It is my life. I have a passion for trading. It is not merely a hobby or even a career choice for me. There is no question that this is what I am supposed to do with my life." - Market Wizards Why? Because every trading system, regardless of the strategy employed, is going to hit periods when it does poorly. - Jack D Schwager, _The Little Book of Market Wizards_ There is a Wall Street adage that says, “Even a poor trading system could make money with good money management.” Have you heard that saying before? Well, if you have, forget it, because it is really one of the stupidest things that has ever been said about trading. If you believe that good money management can salvage a poor system or methodology, I invite you to go to a casino, walk over to a roulette wheel, use your best money management system to bet, and see how well that works out for you. In fact, if you asked a hundred mathematicians the question, “I have $1,000 that I want to bet in roulette—what is the optimal betting strategy I should use?,” all 100 should give you the same answer: Take the entire $1,000 and place it on red or black (or on odd or even) for one spin, and then, win or lose, walk away. That betting strategy will give you the highest probability of being a winner in roulette.1 - Jack D Schwager, _The Little Book of Market Wizards_ No trader I ever interviewed for any of the Market Wizards books when asked how he did what he did gave a response like, “I look at the screen, and if bonds look good, I’ll buy some.” None of them approached trading with a cavalier, shoot-from-the-hip attitude. They all had a specific methodology. Some of them could describe their methodology in very specific, almost step-by-step terms. Others described their approach in more general terms. But it was clear they all had a specific methodology. So what exactly is your methodology? If you can’t answer that question, you are not ready to be risking money in the markets. If you can answer that question, the next question is, “Does your trading method provide an edge?” If you are unsure about the answer, again, you are not ready to be risking money in the markets. Successful traders are confident that their methodology provides an edge. - Jack D Schwager, _The Little Book of Market Wizards_ Monroe Trout, who achieved one of the best long-term return/risk records ever recorded, nicely summarized this concept. When I asked him what trading rules he lived by, he replied, “Make sure you have the edge. Know what your edge is. Have rigid risk control rules . . . To make money, you need to have an edge and employ good money management. Good money management alone isn’t going to increase your edge at all. If your system isn’t any good, you’re still going to lose money, no matter how effective your money management rules are. But if you have an approach that makes money, then money management can make the difference between success and failure.” - Jack D Schwager, _The Little Book of Market Wizards_