50 of the Top Trading Quotes Ever

50 of the Top Trading Quotes Ever

While trading quotes can be taken out of context, and it is crucial to have a full understanding of what the trader meant at the time, they can also give traders important insights.  I asked some of my followers for their favorite trading quotes. There were a lot of great suggestions, but here are the top 50 that I’d like to share.

  1. “After spending many years in Wall Street and after making and losing millions of dollars I want to tell you this: it never was my thinking that made the big money for me. It was always my sitting. Got that? My sitting tight! It is no trick at all to be right on the market. I’ve known many [traders] who were right at exactly the right time, and began buying or selling stocks when prices were at the very level that should show the greatest profit. And their experience invariably matched mine; that is, they made no real money out of it. [Traders] 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 the big money.” – Jesse Livermore
  2. “Sheer will and determination is no substitute for something that actually works.” – Jason Klatt
  3. “Everyday I assume every position I have is wrong.” – Paul Tudor Jones
  4. “I just wait until there is money lying in the corner, and all I have to do is go over there and pick it up. I do nothing in the meantime.”
    – Jim Rogers
  5. “You can lose your opinion of you can lose your money.” – Adam Grimes
  6. “I have two basic rules about winning in trading as well as in life: 1. If you don’t bet, you can’t win. 2. If you lose all your chips, you can’t bet.” – Larry Hite
  7. “Cut your losses. Cut your losses. Cut your losses. Then maybe you have a chance.” – Ed Seykota
  8. “Bulls make money, bears make money, pigs get slaughtered.”
  9. “Take your profits or someone else will take them for you.” – J.J. Evans
  10. “Beware of trading quotes.” – Andreas Clenow
  11. “The desire for constant action irrespective of underlying conditions is responsible for many losses in Wall Street.” – Jesse Livermore
  12. “There is a huge difference between a good trade and good trading.” – Steve Burns
  13. “The market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient.”- Warren Buffet
  14. “Never let a win go to your head, or a loss to your heart.” – Chuck D.
  15. “Some people make shoes. Some people make houses. We make money, and people are willing to pay us a lot to make money for them.” – Monroe Trout
  16. “Only The Game , Can Teach You The Game” – Jesse Livermore
  17. “Losers average losers.” (Sign in Paul Tudor Jones office).
  18. “Trade the market in front of you, not the one you want!” – Scott Redler
  19. “Trade What’s Happening…Not What You Think Is Gonna Happen.” – Doug Gregory @SharpTraders
  20. “In trading the impossible happens about twice a year.” – Henri M Simoes @TraderHMS
  21. “The trend is your friend – until it stabs you in the back with a chopstick.” – @StockCats
  22. “He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot will be victorious.” – Sun Tzu
  23. “Michael Marcus taught me one other thing that is absolutely critical: You have to be willing to make mistakes regularly; there is nothing wrong with it. Michael taught me about making your best judgment, being wrong, making your next best judgment, being wrong, making your third best judgment, and then doubling your money.” – Bruce Kovner
  24. “Where you want to be is always in control, never wishing, always trading, and always first and foremost protecting your butt.” – Paul Tudor Jones
  25. “The game of speculation is the most uniformly fascinating game in the world. But it is not a game for the stupid, the mentally lazy, the person of inferior emotional balance, or the get-rich-quick adventurer. They will die poor.” – Jesse Livermore
  26. “A rising tide lifts all boats over the wall of worry and exposes bears swimming naked.” – @StockCats
  27. “All you need is one pattern to make a living.” – Linda Raschke
  28. “All the math you need in the stock market you get in the fourth grade.” -Peter Lynch
  29. “5/1 risk/reward ratio allows you to have a hit rate of 20%. I can actually be a complete imbecile. I can be wrong 80% of time and still not lose.” – Paul Tudor Jones
  30. The core problem, however, is the need to fit markets into a style of trading rather than finding ways to trade that fit with market behavior.” – Brett Steenbarger
  31. “If you don’t respect risk, eventually they’ll carry you out.” – Larry Hite
  32. “The trend is your friend until the end when it bends.” – Ed Seykota
  33. “Once you find the system that works for your style/personality and confidence is gained, wash, rinse, repeat over and over again.” – @Sunrisetrader
  34. “Dangers of watching every tick are twofold: overtrading and increased chances of prematurely liquidating good positions” – Jack Schwager
  35. “If you can’t take a small loss, sooner or later you will take the mother of all losses.” – Ed Seykota
  36. In trading, everything works sometimes and nothing works always.”
  37. “The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.” – John Maynard Keynes
  38. “IF YOU WANT TO BE A LEDGE… FIND YOUR EDGE…” – Tom Dante @Trader_Dante
  39. “By living the philosophy that my winners are always in front of me, it is not so painful to take a loss.” – Marty Schwartz
  40. “Sometimes the best trade is no trade.” – Anonymous
  41. “Hope is bogus emotion that only costs you money.” – Jim Cramer
  42. “One day does not make a trend.” – Anonymous
  43. “It’s OK to be wrong; it’s unforgivable to stay wrong.” -Martin Zweig
  44. “Amateurs think about how much money they can make. Professionals think about how much money they could lose.” – Jack Schwager (paraphrase)
  45. “Opportunities come infrequently. When it rains gold put out a bucket not a thimble.” – Warren Buffet
  46. “Don’t fight the Fed.” – Marty Zwieg
  47. “You’re going to learn a million things, then you need to forget them all and focus on one.” – @SunriseTrader
  48. “The obvious rarely happens, the unexpected constantly occurs.” – Jesse Livermore
  49. “Stocks are bought not in fear but in hope. They are typically sold out of fear.” – Justin Mamis
  50. “Accepting losses is the most important single investment device to insure safety of capital.” – Gerald M. Loeb

Thanks to everyone who shared these great quotes!

50 of the Top Trading Quotes Ever