RULES FOR SUCCESSFUL TRADING (PART1)
If you cannot follow a rule, do not begin speculating or investing, as you are sure to lose. Learn to adhere strictly to a rule or do not follow it at all. The following rules should be carefully studied and applied in your trading:
CAPITAL REQUIRED
You would not try to run an automobile and start out to travel several hundred miles unless you knew how much gasoline it required to run a given number of miles. Yet, you go into speculation without knowing one of the most important things, -- the amount of capital required to succeed and make speculation a business. Do not try to get rich in a few months or a year. A man certainly should be satisfied if he can acquire a competent fortune over a period of ten to twenty years. Often we have one year when a man with nerve and knowledge and a small amount of capital can make a fortune. I have been able to pile up enormous profits in a short time by pyramiding, but this can not be done continuously and I do not claim to be able to do it. What I am trying to teach you is a safe, sure way, which will yield more profits than any other business on earth if you will only be conservative and not make speculation a wild gamble. A man may go into business and lose all of his money and then years pass before he has another opportunity to make a large amount of money in that or any other business. Yet, in the speculative markets opportunities return every year, provided a man has studied enough to see them when they appear. The chances for gain are so unusual and so many great opportunities do come in Wall Street that the average man gets greedy, gambles and does not wait between times for the real opportunity.
LIMIT YOUR RISK
A strong will power is just as essential as plenty of capital. If you have not the firmness, will power, and determination to protect every trade with a stop loss order, do not start trading, for you will fail. I have often heard traders say “If I place a stop loss order at a certain point the market is sure to catch it.” Yet they realize afterward that the stop loss order being caught was the best thing that could happen to them. There is nothing better than getting out quickly when you are wrong. The man who refuses to get out when he is wrong usually stays until his money is gone and the margin clerk sells him out. A lot of people do not know how to place a stop loss order on a trade when they make it. A stop loss order is an order given to the broker that becomes a market order when the stock reaches the price at which it is placed.
OVERTRADING -- THE GREATEST EVIL
Overtrading is the cause of more losses than anything else in Wall Street. The average man does not know how much capital is required to make a success and he buys or sells more than he should. Therefore he is forced to get out of the market when his capital is nearly exhausted and probably misses opportunities for making profits. Make up your mind how much loss you can afford before you make a trade and not afterward. Stick to small quantities. Be conservative. Do not overtrade, especially at the bottom or top of long moves. Fortunes are lost trying to catch the last 3 to 5 points in extreme moves. Keep cool. Avoid getting overconfident at tops and bottoms. Study your charts carefully and do not allow your judgment to be influenced by hope or fear. Many a trader has started out trading in 10 shares and made a success because he started near top or bottom; then when the market had reached extreme, he began trading in 100-share lots and lost all of his profits and capital too, because he violated the conservative principle which helped him to make a success. If you make one trade and it starts to go against you, you are wrong. Then why buy or sell more to average a loss? When things are getting worse, day by day in every way, why do your best to make them get worse in every way? Stop the loss before it is eternally too late. Every trader should remember that the weakest point of all is overtrading, and the next, failing to place a stop loss order, and the third fatal mistake of all, averaging a loss. Eliminate these three mistakes and you will make a success. Cut short your losses, let your profits run, pyramid or increase your buying or selling when the market is moving in your favor, not when it is going against you. Remember that wild, active markets are brought about by feverish manipulation, and that they increase the imagination, exaggerate your hopes, and take away all sense of reason and proportion. Therefore, in extreme markets try to keep a cool head. Remember that all things come to an end, and that a train going 6o miles an hour will cause a greater smash-up if it leaves the track than one traveling 5 miles an hour. Therefore, in a wild runaway market, jump before she bumps, for you will never be able to get out once the crash comes. When everybody wants to sell, and no one wants to buy, profits run into losses fast.
CAPITAL REQUIRED
You would not try to run an automobile and start out to travel several hundred miles unless you knew how much gasoline it required to run a given number of miles. Yet, you go into speculation without knowing one of the most important things, -- the amount of capital required to succeed and make speculation a business. Do not try to get rich in a few months or a year. A man certainly should be satisfied if he can acquire a competent fortune over a period of ten to twenty years. Often we have one year when a man with nerve and knowledge and a small amount of capital can make a fortune. I have been able to pile up enormous profits in a short time by pyramiding, but this can not be done continuously and I do not claim to be able to do it. What I am trying to teach you is a safe, sure way, which will yield more profits than any other business on earth if you will only be conservative and not make speculation a wild gamble. A man may go into business and lose all of his money and then years pass before he has another opportunity to make a large amount of money in that or any other business. Yet, in the speculative markets opportunities return every year, provided a man has studied enough to see them when they appear. The chances for gain are so unusual and so many great opportunities do come in Wall Street that the average man gets greedy, gambles and does not wait between times for the real opportunity.
LIMIT YOUR RISK
A strong will power is just as essential as plenty of capital. If you have not the firmness, will power, and determination to protect every trade with a stop loss order, do not start trading, for you will fail. I have often heard traders say “If I place a stop loss order at a certain point the market is sure to catch it.” Yet they realize afterward that the stop loss order being caught was the best thing that could happen to them. There is nothing better than getting out quickly when you are wrong. The man who refuses to get out when he is wrong usually stays until his money is gone and the margin clerk sells him out. A lot of people do not know how to place a stop loss order on a trade when they make it. A stop loss order is an order given to the broker that becomes a market order when the stock reaches the price at which it is placed.
OVERTRADING -- THE GREATEST EVIL
Overtrading is the cause of more losses than anything else in Wall Street. The average man does not know how much capital is required to make a success and he buys or sells more than he should. Therefore he is forced to get out of the market when his capital is nearly exhausted and probably misses opportunities for making profits. Make up your mind how much loss you can afford before you make a trade and not afterward. Stick to small quantities. Be conservative. Do not overtrade, especially at the bottom or top of long moves. Fortunes are lost trying to catch the last 3 to 5 points in extreme moves. Keep cool. Avoid getting overconfident at tops and bottoms. Study your charts carefully and do not allow your judgment to be influenced by hope or fear. Many a trader has started out trading in 10 shares and made a success because he started near top or bottom; then when the market had reached extreme, he began trading in 100-share lots and lost all of his profits and capital too, because he violated the conservative principle which helped him to make a success. If you make one trade and it starts to go against you, you are wrong. Then why buy or sell more to average a loss? When things are getting worse, day by day in every way, why do your best to make them get worse in every way? Stop the loss before it is eternally too late. Every trader should remember that the weakest point of all is overtrading, and the next, failing to place a stop loss order, and the third fatal mistake of all, averaging a loss. Eliminate these three mistakes and you will make a success. Cut short your losses, let your profits run, pyramid or increase your buying or selling when the market is moving in your favor, not when it is going against you. Remember that wild, active markets are brought about by feverish manipulation, and that they increase the imagination, exaggerate your hopes, and take away all sense of reason and proportion. Therefore, in extreme markets try to keep a cool head. Remember that all things come to an end, and that a train going 6o miles an hour will cause a greater smash-up if it leaves the track than one traveling 5 miles an hour. Therefore, in a wild runaway market, jump before she bumps, for you will never be able to get out once the crash comes. When everybody wants to sell, and no one wants to buy, profits run into losses fast.
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