Hi all, This thread is about Quotable Quotes or Words of Wisdom in Trading. I am building a collection of these quotes in my personal blog on trading together with other various aspects related to trading that might be useful. I hope to keep this thread clean with only EXACT quotes quoted directly from books or journals etc. Please only post these quotes if you are sure of the wordings. And please keep discussion of the merits or otherwise of these quotes out of this thread, hopefully. That can be done in a different thread if needed. Hopefully, this will provide a convenient collection of trading wisdom for those seeking inspirations. I will start off with one of the favourite quotes of mine below which emphasizes the importance of CUTTING LOSSES. "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 Please limit strictly quotable quotes related to trading, except those who are short, concise and powerful, like He who controls others may be more powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still. Lao Tse, Chinese Philosopher Please include BOTH the QUOTES and the PERSON making the quotes. TQ
"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 "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 "Don't focus on making money; focus on protecting what you have." Paul Tudor Jones "I always define my risk, and I don't have to worry about it." Tony Saliba "The most important thing in making money is not letting your losses get out of hand." Marty Schwartz "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
"The fundamental law of investing is the uncertainty of the future." Peter Bernstein "There is the plain fool who does the wrong thing at all times anywhere, but there is the Wall Street fool who thinks he must trade all the time." Edwin Lefevre
"The basic concept that applies to both poker and trading is that the primary objects is not winning the most hands, but rather maximizing your gains." Jeff Yass
"It never was my thinking that made big money for me. It was always my sitting. Got that? My sitting tight!" Jesse Livermore
"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
"The way to build superior long-term returns is through preservation of capital and home runs...When you have tremendous conviction on a trade, you have to go for the jugular. It takes courage to be a pig." Stanley Druckenmiller
"Every trader knows that market truth and practice are visceral, not cerebral. Market wisdom, like Samurai truth, is practical truth that can only be utilized and realized in action. It can never reside on the level of mere theory." Robert Koppel, Tao of Trading
"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
"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