Great Quotes from Traders and Other Successful People

Quote of the Day

“The public wants gurus, and new gurus will come. As an intelligent trader, you must realize that in the long run, no guru is going to make you rich. You have to work on that yourself.” – Alexander Elder

“But the fact is: The people who are really successful in trading are tremendously hard workers.” – Jack Schwager

“Where you want to be is always in control, never wishing, always trading, and always first and foremost protecting your ass. That’s why most people lose money as individual investors or traders because they’re not focusing on losing money. They need to focus on the money that they have at risk and how much capital is at risk in any single investment they have. If everyone spent 90 percent of their time on that, not 90 percent of the time on pie-in-the-sky ideas on how much money they’re going to make, then they will be incredibly successful investors.” – Paul Tudor Jones

“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.” – Steve Jobs

“People who succeed have momentum. The more they succeed, the more they want to succeed, and the more they find a way to succeed. Similarly, when someone is failing, the tendency is to get on a downward spiral that can even become a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
– Tony Robbins

“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.” – Herman Cain

“Many an opportunity is lost because a man is out looking for four-leaf clovers. “ – Anonymous

“One of the greatest tools of trading is the stop, the point at which you divorce yourself from your emotions and ego and admit that you’re wrong” – Marty Schwartz

“Watch the market leaders, the stocks that have led the charge upward in a bull market. That is where the action is and where the money is to be made. As the leaders go, so goes the entire market. If you cannot make money in the leaders, you are not going to make money in the stock market. Watching the leaders keeps your universe of stocks limited, focused, and more easily controlled.” – Jesse Livermore

“The first rule of trading – there are probably many first rules – is don’t get caught in a situation in which you can lose a great deal of money for reasons you don’t understand.” – Bruce Kovner

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”  – Steve Jobs

“Not only an endeavor – it was an obsession! I slept with it; I dreamt about it. Sometime I would stay up all night thinking about what I would do the next day. If I didn’t need sleep, I would have done it twenty-four hours a day. At that point, it wasn’t the money that was motivating me. I was hooked on the game: on the challenge of trying to figure out the market.” – Market Wizard Mark Weinstein

“Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.” – Pele

“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

“If you ask me how I want to be remembered, it is as a winner… A winner is somebody who gave his best effort, who has tried the hardest they possibly can…who has utilized every ounce of energy and strength within them to accomplish something. It doesn’t mean that they accomplished it or failed, it means they’ve given it their best. That’s a winner.” – Walter Payton

“You don’t want to have a position before a move has started. You want to wait until the move is already under way before you get into the market.” – Jack Schwager

Risk management is the most important thing to be well understood. Under trade, under trade, under trade is my second piece of advice. Whatever you think your position ought to be, cut it at least in half. – Bruce Kovner

“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

“For example, when John F. Kennedy was assassinated, the market initially broke very sharply, but then quickly rebounded to new highs. This price action baffled many people. Investors who sold on the news only to watch the market reverse blamed the institutions for pushing the market higher. What they failed to realize is that a market that is fundamentally and technically poised to move higher is not going to reverse direction because of a news item—even a dramatic one.” – Market Wizard Mark Weinstein

 “I will keep cutting my position size down as I have losing trades. When I am trading poorly, I keep reducing my position size. That way, I will be trading my smallest position size when my trading is worst.” – Paul Tudor Jones

“There is only one side to the stock market…Not the bull side or the bear side, but the right side. It took me longer to get that general principle fixed firmly in my mind that it did most of the more technical phases of the game.” – Jesse Livermore

“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

“I don’t believe anyone ever gets wiped out in the market because of bad luck; there is always some other reason for it. Either you were off when you did the trade, or you didn’t have the experience. There is always a mistake involved.” – Market Wizard Mark Weinstein

“Letting losses run is the most serious mistake made by most investors.” – William J. O’Neil

“If you ever find yourself tempted to seek out someone else’s opinion on a trade, that’s usually a sure sign that you should get out of your position.” – Linda Bradford Raschke

“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.

“If you can’t fly, then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.

“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 discovered that you can’t train people how to trade by just imparting knowledge. The key to trading success is emotional discipline. Making money has nothing to do with intelligence. Think of all the bright people that choose careers on Wall Street. If intelligence were the key, there would be a lot more people making money trading.”
― Jack D. Schwager

“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

“You have to master your ego and realize that being profitable is more important than being right” – Marty Schwartz

“I had learned I had to work for my money.” – Jesse Livermore