Quote from: Morb on August 13, 2014, 07:33:10 PM

Quote from: ELMER_FUD on August 13, 2014, 07:28:49 PM

"And right here let me say one thing: 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 always was my sitting. Got that? My sitting tight! It is no trick at all to be right on the market. You always find lots of early bulls in bull markets and early bears in bear markets.

Ive known many men who were right at exactly the right time, and began buying and selling stocks when prices were at the very level which should show the greatest profit. And their experience invariably matched mine that is, they made no real money out of it. Men 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 big money. It is literally true that millions come easier to a trader after he knows how to trade than hundreds did in the days of his ignorance.

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."

- Edwin Lefèvre (via Jesse Livermore), Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, p. 57

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0471770884

I have been trying to learn that lesson for the last few months. Hopefully I get it right sooner or later.

It took Jesse Livermore several years to learn it. That was back after the turn of the last century, years before he started making enormous sums of money. He allegedly made over $100M during the stock market crash of 1929 and was at one point one of the wealthiest men in the world.