1. Plan your trades. Trade your
plan.
2. Keep records of your trading
results.
3. Keep a positive attitude, no
matter how much you lose.
4. Don’t take the market home.
5. Continually set higher trading
goals.
6. Successful traders buy into bad
news and sell into good news.
7. Successful traders are not afraid
to buy high and sell low.
8. Successful traders have a
well-scheduled planned time for studying the markets.
9. Successful traders isolate
themselves from the opinions of others.
10. Continually strive for patience,
perseverance, determination, and rational action.
11. Limit your losses – use stops!
12. Never cancel a stop loss order
after you have placed it!
13. Place the stop at the time you
make your trade.
14. Never get into the market because
you are anxious because of waiting.
15. Avoid getting in or out of the
market too often.
16. Losses make the trader studious
– not profits. Take advantage of every loss to improve your knowledge of market
action.
17. The most difficult task in speculation
is not prediction but self-control. Successful trading is difficult and
frustrating. You are the most important element in the equation for success.
18. Always discipline yourself by
following a pre-determined set of rules.
19. Remember that a bear market will
give back in one month what a bull market has taken three months to build.
20. Don’t ever allow a big winning
trade to turn into a loser. Stop yourself out if the market moves against you
20% from your peak profit point.
21. You must have a program, you
must know your program, and you must follow your program.
22. Expect and accept losses
gracefully. Those who brood over losses always miss the next opportunity, which
more than likely will be profitable.
23. Split your profits right down
the middle and never risk more than 50% of them again in the market.
24. The key to successful trading is
to know yourself and your stress point.
25. The difference between winners
and losers isn’t so much native ability as it is discipline exercised in
avoiding mistakes.
26. In trading as in fencing there
are the quick and the dead.
27. Speech may be silver but silence
is golden. Traders with the golden touch do not talk about their success.
28. Dream big dreams and think tall.
Very few people set goals too high. A man becomes what he thinks about all day
long.
29. Accept failure as a step towards
victory.
30. Have you taken a loss? Forget it
quickly. Have you taken a profit? Forget it even quicker! Don’t let ego and
greed inhibit clear thinking and hard work.
31. One cannot do anything about
yesterday. When one door closes, another door opens. The greater opportunity
always lies through the open door.
32. The deepest secret for the
trader is to subordinate his will to the will of the market. The market is
truth as it reflects all forces that bear upon it. As long as he recognizes
this he is safe. When he ignores this, he is lost and
doomed.
33. It’s much easier to put on a
trade than to take it off.
34. If a market doesn’t do what you
think it should do, get out.
35. Beware of large positions that
can control your emotions. Don’t be overly aggressive with the market. Treat it
gently by allowing your equity to grow steadily rather than in bursts.
36. Never add to a losing position.
37. Beware of trying to pick tops or
bottoms.
38. You must believe in yourself and
your judgment if you expect to make a living at this game.
39. In a narrow market there is no
sense in trying to anticipate what the next big movement is going to be – up or
down.
40. A loss never bothers me after I
take it. I forget it overnight. But being wrong and not taking the loss – which
is what does the damage to the pocket book and to the soul.
41. Never volunteer advice and never
brag of your winnings.
42. Of all speculative blunders,
there are few greater than selling what shows a profit and keeping what shows a
loss.
43. Standing aside is a position.
44. It is better to be more
interested in the market’s reaction to new information than in the piece of
news itself.
45. If you don’t know who you are,
the markets are an expensive place to find out.
46. In the world of money, which is
a world shaped by human behavior, nobody has the foggiest notion of what will
happen in the future. Mark that word – Nobody! Thus the successful trader does
not base moves on what supposedly will happen but reacts instead to what does
happen.
47. Except in unusual circumstances,
get in the habit of taking your profit too soon. Don’t torment yourself if a
trade continues winning without you. Chances are it won’t continue long. If it
does, console yourself by thinking of all the times when liquidating early
reserved gains that you would have otherwise lost.
48. When the ship starts to sink,
don’t pray – jump!
49. Lose your opinion – not your money.
50. Assimilate into your very bones
a set of trading rules that works for you.
