Clear Thinking

But my greatest discovery was that a man must study general conditions, to size them so as to be able to anticipate probabilities. In short, I had learned that I had to work for my money. I was no longer betting blindly or concerned with mastering the technic of the game, but with earning my successes by hard study and clear thinking.----REMINISCENCES OF A STOCK OPERATOR by Edwin LeFevre

Begin To Learn

There is nothing like losing all you have in the world for teaching you what not to do. And when you know what not to do in order not to lose money, you begin to learn what to do in order to win. Did you get that? You begin to learn!--REMINISCENCES OF A STOCK OPERATOR by Edwin LeFevre

Diagnosis

If a stock doesn't act right don't touch it; because, being unable to tell precisely what is wrong, you cannot tell which way it is going. No diagnosis, no prognosis. No prognosis, no profit.----REMINISCENCES OF A STOCK OPERATOR by Edwin LeFevre

Plan

The Perfect speculator must know when to get in; more important he must know when to stay out: and most important he must know when to get out once he is in.---- Trend Following Michael W. Covel.

Guess

If the unusual never happened there would be no difference in people and then there wouldn't be any fun in life. The game would become merely a matter of addition and subtraction. It would make of us a race of bookkeepers with plodding minds. It's the guessing that develops a man's brain power. Just consider what you have to do to guess right. --REMINISCENCES OF A STOCK OPERATOR by Edwin LeFevre

Attitude

It was the change in my own attitude toward the game that was of supreme importance to me. It taught me, little by little, the essential difference between betting on fluctuations and anticipating inevitable advances and declines, between gambling and speculating.----REMINISCENCES OF A STOCK OPERATOR by Edwin LeFevre

Patient

The reason is that 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.----REMINISCENCES OF A STOCK OPERATOR by Edwin LeFevre

Speculation

Speculation is dealing with the uncertain conditions of the unknown future. Every human action is a speculation in that it is embedded in the flux of time. --Ludwig von Mises