Sometimes you just need a boost. Sometimes you know what you need to do, but just need reminding. Sometimes you fall, and need help getting back up. Sometimes you need just a little extra inspiration. Whatever the case, we hope these words of wisdom from greater thinkers, great traders, and even regular Joes having a particularly lucid moment will help you through the day—and beyond.
Download the key points of this post as PDF.
Have you gone off course, chasing a losing stock and found yourself emotionally attached and losing big, but still unable to get out or deal with the loss? Do you need a break?
“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 (commodities trader and ‘Turtle Trader’ from MIT)
“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 (American investor, hedge fund manager, and philanthropist.)
“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 (futures trader)
“If you must play, decide on three things at the start: the rules of the game, the stakes and the quitting time.” – Chinese proverb
“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 (founder and retired chief executive of The Vanguard Group).
“The time of maximum pessimism is the best time to buy, and the time of maximum optimism is the best time to sell.” – John Templeton (American-born British investor, fund manager, and philanthropist).
“In a world that’s changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.” – Mark Zuckerberg
“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.” —Jesse Livermore (American investor extraordinaire)
“There is a time to go long, a time to go short and a time to go fishing.” —Jesse Livermore
Have you forgotten who your friends are in this industry? Hint … they’re not sentient.
“The Trend is your friend.” –Unknown
“The key to trading success is emotional discipline. If intelligence were the key, there would be a lot more people making money trading… the single most important reason that people lose money in the financial markets is that they don’t cut their losses short.” –Victor Sperandeo
The fundamental law of investing is the uncertainty of the future.” –Peter Bernstein
“Money is like manure. You have to spread it around or it smells.” –J. Paul Getty
“It is not whether you are right or wrong that is important, but how much money you make when you are right, and how much you lose when you are wrong.” – George Soros
“Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.” – John Maynard Keynes
“I never attempt to make money on the stock market. I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for five years.” – Warren Buffet
“The easiest way to earn money in a stock market is to ask a layman to trade; sell whatever he buys, buy whatever he sells. ” – Hriskikech SenGupta
“There are two kinds of investors, be they large or small: those who do not know where the market is headed, and those who do not know that they do not know. Then again, there is a third type of investor- the investment professional, who indeed knows that he or she does not know, but whose livelihood depends on appearing to know.” – William Bernstein
“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
“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
“The heart lies and the head plays tricks with us, but the eyes see true. Look with your eyes. Hear with your ears. Taste with your mouth. Smell with your nose. Feel with your skin. Then comes the thinking, afterward, and in that way knowing the truth.” – Syrio Forel
“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
“Economists have correctly predicted nine of the last five recessions.” – Paul Samuelson
“The stock market will always do whatever makes the greatest number of people look foolish.” – Unknown
“The market is weird. Every time one guy sells, another one buys, and they both think they’re smart.” – Unknown
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Evergreen words of wisdom to live by as a trader—all the inspiration you’ll ever need:
“Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.” – Oscar Wilde
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results.” – Jesse Livermore
“I hate weekends because there is no stock market.” – Rene Rivkin
“We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.” – Warren Buffet
“Rule No. 1: Never lose money. Rule No. 2: Never forget rule No. 1.” – Warren Buffet
“P/E ratio – The percentage of investors wetting their pants as this market keeps crashing.” – Anon
“Every morning I get up and look through the Forbes list of the richest people in America. If I am not there, I go to work.” – Robert Orben
“The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.” –Vidal Sassoon
Check out STT’s new Twitter Streams! One of our most important new releases of 2017 is the inclusion of Twitter as a source of data for keeping up to date with the latest social discussions on a given stock. Every Stock tab includes a Twitter data feed which focuses only on tweets mentioning the company being tracked.