Psychological

I sincerely feel that success in trading is 80 percent psychological and 20 percent one's methodology, be it fundamental or technical. For example, you can have a mediocre knowledge of fundamental and technical information, and if you are in psychological control, you can make money. ----The Disciplined Trader,Mark Douglas

Making Money

The market is never wrong in what it does; it just is. Therefore, you as an individual trader interacting with the market—first as an observer to perceive opportunity, then as a participant executing a trade, contributing to the overall market behavior—have to confront an environment where only you can be wrong, and it's never the other way around. As a trader, you have to decide what is more important—being right or making money—because the two are not always compatible or consistent with one another...----The Disciplined Trader,Mark Douglas

Self Control

If, in fact, you can't control or manipulate the markets and the markets have absolutely no power or control over you, then the responsibility for what you perceive and for your resulting behavior resides only in you. The one thing you can control is yourself. As a trader, you have the power either to give yourself money or to give your money to other traders.----The Disciplined Trader,Mark Douglas

You Can't Beat The Market

A man may beat a stock or a group at a certain time, but no man living can beat the stock market! A man may make money out of individual deals in cotton or grain, but no man can beat the cotton market or the grain market. It's like the track. A man may beat a horse race, but he cannot beat horse racing. -----REMINISCENCES OF A STOCK OPERATOR by Edwin LeFevre

Human Nature

“There is nothing new on Wall Street or in stock speculation. What has happened in the past will happen again, and again, and again. This is because human nature does not change, and it is human emotion that always gets in the way of human intelligence.
Of this I am sure.”—Jesse Livermore