Trading Discipline Quotes

Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.

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.

One of the most helpful things that anybody can learn is to give up trying to catch the last eighth - or the first. These two are the most expensive eighths in the world. They have cost stock traders, in the aggregate, enough millions of dollars to build a concrete highway across the continent.

First if all, never play macho man in the market. Second, never overtrade. My major problem was not the number of points I lost on the trade, but that I was trading far too many contracts relative to the equity in the accounts that I handled.

I don't know whether I make myself plain, but I never lose my temper over the stock market. I never argue with the tape. Getting sore at the market doesn't get you anywhere.

Risk management is the most important thing to be well understood. Undertrade, undertrade, undertrade is my second piece of advice. Whatever you think your position ought to be, cut it at least in half.

If you personalize losses, you can't trade.

Whenever I enter a position, I have a predetermined stop. That is the only way I can sleep. I know where I'm getting out before I get in. The position size on a trade is determined by the stop, and the stop is determined on a technical basis... I never think about [stop vulnerability], because the point about a technical barrier - and I've studied the technical aspects of the market for a long time - is that the market shouldn't go there if you are right.

I'm not better than the next trader, just quicker at admitting my mistakes and moving on to the next opportunity.

First of all, never play macho man with the market. Second, never overtrade.

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.

You have to be okay with wins and losses. You can't just be looking for the wins and, when the losses happen, you can't buy more and more because you're sure it's going to bounce. We call that revenge trading.

The hardest trader I've ever run against.

Much of our trading comes down to a battle between our patience and our impulses.

The best restraint is old-fashioned market discipline, in which financial traders know that they, personally, will lose a ton of money if they take risky bets that don't pan out.

Wall Street is littered with the bones of those who knew just what to do, but could not bring themselves to do it.

Professional traders have always had some system or other based upon their experience and governed either by their attitude towards speculation or by their desires.

While enthusiasm may be necessary for great accomplishments elsewhere, on Wall Street it almost invariably leads to disaster

The best traders are simply slaves to the market's price action

Trading is very competitive and you have to be able to handle getting your butt kicked.