[idaxtrader]

The professional concerns himself with doing the right thing rather than with making money, knowing that the profit takes care of itself if the other things are attended to.


That is, he looks far ahead instead of considering the particular shot before him. It gets to be an instinct to play for position.

He was no novice in Wall Street, but he was thinking of the market from the point of view of the newspaper man and, incidentally, of the general public. The price certainly ought to go down on the news of inside selling.

The point I would make is his habitual attitude toward trading. He didn't have to reflect.

I am fairly immune from the commoner speculative ailments, such as greed and fear and hope. But being an ordinary man I find I can err with great ease.

I wish to know my own limitations and habits of thought. Another reason is that I do not wish to make the same mistake a second time.

"What are you working for then?" "For the commission and the record," he answered. "What record?" "Mine." "What are you driving at?"
"Do you work for money alone?" he asked me. "Yes," I said. "No." And he shook his head. "No, you don't. You wouldn't get enough fun out of it. You certainly do not work merely to add a few more dollars to your bank account and you are not in Wall Street because you like easy money. You get your fun some other way. Well, same here."

"I know exactly what I am doing. That's all the secret there is.

But he can be talked into a state of uncertainty and indecision, which is even worse, for that means that he cannot trade with confidence and comfort.

Of all speculative blunders there are few greater than trying to average a losing game.

To learn that a man can make foolish plays for no reason whatever was a valuable lesson.

If you know much about the average customer of the average commission house you will agree with me that the hope of making the stock market pay your bill is one of the most prolific sources of loss in Wall Street. You will chip out all you have if you adhere to your determination.

In fact, of all hoodoos in Wall Street I think the resolve to induce the stock market to act as a fairy godmother is the busiest and most persistent.

What does a man do when he sets out to make the stock market pay for a sudden need? Why, he merely hopes. He gambles. He therefore runs much greater risks than he would if he were speculating intelligently, in accordance with opinions or beliefs logically arrived at after a dispassionate study of underlying conditions. To begin with, he is after an immediate profit. He cannot afford to wait. The market must be nice to him at once if at all. He flatters himself that he is not asking more than to place an even-money bet. Because he is prepared to run quick -- say, stop his loss at two points when all he hopes to make is two points -- he hugs the fallacy that he is merely taking a fifty-fifty chance.

I was sick, nervous, upset and unable to reason calmly. That is, I was in the frame of mind in which no speculator should be when he is trading.

A man must know himself thoroughly if he is going to make a good job out of trading in the speculative markets. To know what I was capable
of in the line of folly was a long educational step.