It is literally true that millions come easier to a trader after he knows how to trade, than hundreds did in the days of his ignorance.
Never try to sell at the top. It isn't wise. Sell after a reaction if there is no rally.
A man may see straight and clearly and yet become impatient or doubtful when the market takes its time about doing as he figured it must do. That is why so many men in Wall Street, who are not at all in the sucker class, not even in the third grade, nevertheless lose money. The market does not beat them. They beat themselves, because though they have brains they cannot sit tight.
Experience has proved to me that real money made in speculating has been in commitments in a stock or commodity showing a profit right from the start.
There is only one side to the stock market; and it is not the bull side or the bear side, but the right side
The market does not beat them. They beat themselves, because though they have brains they cannot sit tight.
Men 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 big money.
Every once in a while you must go to cash, take a break, take a vacation. Don't try to play the market all the time. It can't be done, too tough on the emotions.
The desire for constant action irrespective of underlying conditions is responsible for many losses on 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.
I did precisely the wrong thing. The cotton showed me a loss and I kept it. The wheat showed me a profit and I sold it out. Of all the speculative blunders there are few greater than trying to average a losing game. Always sell what shows you a loss and keep what shows you a profit.
The average man doesn't wish to be told that it is a bull or a bear market. What he desires is to be told specifically which particular stock to buy or sell. He wants to get something for nothing. He does not wish to work. He doesn't even wish to have to think.
They say you never grow poor taking profits. No, you don't. But neither do you grow rich taking a four-point profit in a bull market. Where I should have made twenty thousand dollars I made two thousand. That was what conservatism did for me.
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.
A market does not culminate in one grand blaze of glory. Neither does it end with a sudden reversal of form. A market can and does often cease to be a bull market long before prices generally begin to break.
My main life lesson from investing: self-interest is the most powerful force on earth, and can get people to embrace and defend almost anything.
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.
If you can't sleep at night because of your stock market position, then you have gone too far. If this is the case, then sell your position down to the sleeping level.
I began to realize that the big money must necessarily be in the big swing.
I know from experience that nobody can give me a tip or a series of tips that will make more money for me than my own judgment.
When everyone thinks alike, there isn't much thinking taking place. Get out when you can, not when you have to.
The only thing to do when a man is wrong is to be right by ceasing to be wrong.
I never argue with the tape. To be angry at the market because it unexpectedly or even illogically goes against you is like getting mad at your lungs because you have pneumonia.
People who look for easy money invariable pay for the privilege of proving conclusively that it cannot be found on this earth.
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.
A man must study general conditions, to seize them so as to be able to anticipate probabilities.
