Investment Quotes

"I think to be in the upper echelon of sucessful traders requires an innate skill, a gift. It`s just like being a great violinist. But to be a competent trader and make money is a skill you can learn". - Michael Marcus, Trader

"Successful investing is anticipating the anticipations of others." - John Maynard Keynes

"No profession requires more hard work, intelligence, patience, and mental discipline than successful speculation." - Robert Rhea

"In bear markets, stocks usually open strong and close weak. In bull markets, they tend to open weak and close strong." - William J. O'Neill

"The policy of being too cautious is the greatest risk of all." - J. Nehru

"You don`t need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows" - Bob Dylan

"The market does not know if you are long or short and could not care less. You are the only one emotional involved with your position. The market is just reacting to supply and demand and if you are cheering it one way, there is always somebody else cheering it just has hard that it will go the other way" - Marty Schwartz, Pit Bull

"More men have become great through practice than by nature." - Democritus

"When you are starting out, it is very important not to get too far behind because it is very difficult to fight back. Most traders have a tendency to take risks that are too large at the beginning" - Gary Bielfeldt

"Volatility is greatest at turning points, diminishing as a new trend becomes established." - George Soros

"I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it had ceased to be one." - Mark Twain

"Most books on trading say that you only have to be right 3 or 4 times out of 10 if you cut your losses quickly and let your profits ride. That doesn`t work for me. I cut my losses quickly, but I take my winners just as quickly. I need to be right 7 or 8 times out of 10" - Marty Schwartz, Pit Bull

"Successful trading depends on the 3M`s - Mind, Method and Money. Beginners focus on analysis, but professionals operate in a three dimensional space. They are aware of trading psychology their own feelings and the mass psychology of the markets. Each trader needs to have a method for choosing specific stocks, options or futures as well as firm rules for pulling the trigger - deciding when to buy and sell. Money refers to how you manage your trading capital." - Alexander Elder

"Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." - Winston Churchill

"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

"The goal of a successful trader is to make the best trades. Money is secondary." - Alexander Elder

"Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare." - Japanese proverb

"A great trader is like a great athlete . You have to have natural skills, but you have to train yourself how to use them." - Marty Schwartz, Pit Bull

"One characteristic I've found among successful traders is that they function effectively when they're not trading. When markets become very quiet and range bound, they occupy themselves with a variety of activities, from sharing ideas with peers to conducting research. Traders who do not tolerate inactivity well inevitably feel the need to trade, often when there is no objective edge present. For them, losing money is less onerous than experiencing boredom." - in Trader Feed

"If I were walking along a railroad track and saw an express coming at me at 60 miles an hour, I would be a damned fool not to get off the track and let the train go by. After it had passed, I could always get back on the track, if I desired" - in Reminiscences Of A Stock Operator

"To be a super-trader, you'll need an edge to overcome the laws of probability and the uncertainty of the marketplace. That edge comes from information flow, the ability to correct your habits in terms of the market's characteristics, and being able to take risks, cut losses, expand your information network, ferret out ideas, and take recommendations." - Trading to Win, Ari Kiev

"Bull markets are born on pessimism, grow 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. If you want to have a better performance than the crowd, you must do things differently from the crowd." - Sir John Templeton

"Money won't buy happiness, but it will pay the salaries of a large research staff to study the problem." - Bill Vaughan

"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, in Pit Bull

"The markets are the same now as they were five or ten years ago because they keep changing-just like they did then.” - Ed Seykota

“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 Trade To Win

“Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it.” - Salvador DalĂ­

"The ability to foresee that some things cannot be foreseen is a very important quality". - Rousseau

"Investing is no different. It is a game of repetition where hundreds of small actions result in one larger result. But most importantly, it is a game of risk management. It is not the home run hitter who wins in the long-run. Rather, it is that strategist who devises the best long-term plan who ultimately wins. While hitting home runs is sexy it is rarely a recipe for success in the investment world. Aim high, but play small. Over time, good risk management and patience wins. Power is no substitute for precision and patience. The same is true in the world of investing." - in The Prag Cap

"The most important thing in the world is to be lucky. Lucky not to be at the wrong place at the wrong time and lucky to be healthy." - TraderHMS

"The game taught me the game. And it didn’t spare me rod while teaching." - Jesse Livermore

"I think it was a long step forward in my trading education when I realised at last that when old Mr. Partridge kept on telling other customers, “Well, you know this is a bull market!” he really meant to tell them that the big money was not in the individual fluctuations but in the main movements-that is, not in reading the tape but in sizing up the entire market and its trend." - Jesse Livermore

"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, hedge fund manager

"Losing money is the least of my troubles. A loss never troubles me after I take it. I forget it overnight. But being wrong – not taking the loss – that is what does the damage to the pocket book and to the soul." - Jesse Livermore, Reminiscences Of A Stock Operator

"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."- Martin Schwartz, in Pit Bull

"It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well." - Rene Descartes

"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

"If somebody had told me my method would not work I nevertheless would have tried it out to make sure for myself, for when I am wrong only one thing convinces me of it, and that is, to lose money. And I am only right when I make money. That is speculating." - Jesse Livermore

"The most important organ in the body as far as the stock market is concerned is the guts, not the head. Anyone can acquire the know-how for analyzing stocks." - Peter Lynch

"The 10 day exponential moving average (EMA) is my favourite indicator to determine the major trend. I call this "red light, green light" because it is imperative in trading to remain on the correct side of moving average to give yourself the best probability of sucess. When you are trading above the 10 day, you have the green light, the market is in positive mode and you should be thinking buy. Conversely, trading below the average is a red light. The market is in a negative mode and you should be thinking sell." - Marty Schwartz

"I discovered, from the analysis of over 25,000 people, that men who succeed in an outstanding way, seldom do so before the age of forty, and more often they do not strike their real pace until they are well beyond the age of fifty." - Napoleon Hill, Think & Grow Rich

"Obviously the thing to do was to be bullish in a bull market and bearish in a bear market… I came to learn that even when one is properly bearish at the very beginning of a bear market it is not well to begin selling in bulk until there is no danger of the engine back-firing." - Jesse Livermore

"Beginners focus on analysis, but professionals operate in a three dimensional space. They are aware of trading psychology their own feelings and the mass psychology of the markets." - Alexander Elder

"Money doesn't always bring happiness. People with ten million dollars are no happier than people with nine million dollars." - Hobart Brown

"Win or lose, everybody gets what they want out of the market. Some people seem to like to lose, so they win by losing money." - Ed Seykota, trader

"To be a good trader, you need to trade with your eyes open, recognize real trends and turns, and not waste time or energy on regrets and wishful thinking." - Alexander Elder

"There are two times in a man's life when he should not speculate; when he can't afford it, and when he can..." - Mark Twain

"Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent." - John Maynard Keynes

"The markets are unforgiving, and emotional trading always results in losses." - Alexander Elder

"When a falling stock becomes a screaming buy because it cannot conceivably drop further, try to buy it thirty percent lower." - Al Rizzo

"Your ultimate success or failure will depend on your ability to ignore the worries of the world long enough to allow your investments to succeed." - Peter Lynch

"I know at last what distinguishes man from animals; financial worries." - Romain Rolland

"The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable." - John Kenneth Galbraith