Cus D'Amato

“Boxing is entertainment, so to be successful a fighter must not only win but he must win in an exciting manner. He must throw punches with bad intentions.”
-Cus D'Amato

 

Method

"If somebody had told me my method would not work I nevertheless would have tried it out to make sure for myself, for when I am wrong only one thing convinces me of it, and that is, to lose money. And I am only right when I make money. That is speculating." - Jesse Livermore

Trading Systems

"Trading is a little like morality in that it's a lot easier to know what you should do than to do it"
- William Eckhardt

The Babe Ruth of the CBOT

“You have to love to lose money and hate to make money to be successful…It’s against human nature what I teach and practice.  You have to overcome your humanness.”

-Everett Klipp

Turf Betting

“Few players take into consideration the principle of ever-changing cycles of results. The would-be professional player must always understand that the form moves away from the public’s knowledge.”
-Robert L. Bacon, Secrets of Professional Turf Betting

 

J W H

"Conventional capital market theory is based on a linear view of the world, one in which investors have rational expecations; they adjust immediately to information about the markets and behave as if they know precisely how the structure of the economy works.  Markets are highly efficient, but not perfectly so.  Inefficiencies are inherent in the economy or in the structure of markets themselves...We believe inefficiencies in markets can be exploited through a combination of trend detection and risk management."

John W. Henry

Perceptions and Beliefs

"Because you grasp labels and slogans,
You are hindered by those labels and slogans,
Both those used in ordinary life and those
Considered sacred.
Thus they obstruct your perception of objective truth,
And you cannot understand clearly."

Desert

 "One cannot fight the desert and live. One lives with it, or one dies. One learns its ways and its life, and moves with care, and never ceases to be wary, for the desert has traps and tricks for the careless."

-Hondo

Musical Chairs

"In this game of musical market chairs, the largest traders control the pause button.  They wait for the other players to bunch together; then they grab a seat just as they stop the music.  Much of the intraday movement of the market is attributable to precisely this bunching and its exploitation by large traders. "

-Brett N. Steenbarger

Vic

"A major purpose of markets is to transfer resources from the weak to the strong, so that the infrastructure can be augments and stabilized, and everything you read or hear about the market is designed by an invisible evil hand to put you on the wrong foot so that you will contribute and lose more than you have any civilized personage has any right to do."

-Victor Niederhoffer

James J Hill

"Give snuff, whiskey and swedes, and I will build a railroad to hell."

-James J. Hill

www.newleveltraders.com

Learning to trade is a task that most people never complete.  I've been at it for about 15,000 hours and still have a long way to go.

I attribute the degree of complexity to the competition.  There are no minor leagues when it comes to trading, your opponents are professionals and most make the all star game.  So here you are stepping up to the plate with watching 98 mph pitches coming at you as a beginner.

If you trade equities, futures, or options check out my friends at www.newleveltraders.com  I have been trading with them for about a year now, and they have helped me accelerate and solidify core concepts of trading.

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http://www.youtube.com/newleveltraders

The Essence of Markets

"The markets are not something that we create or imagine; it is a natural process of our world that continues as long as life lasts, whether we concentrate on it or not.  So it is an object that is always present; we can turn to it at any time.  One does not have to have any qualifications to watch it, we do not even need to be particularly intelligent – all we have to do is to be content with, and aware of, one rise and one fall.  Great wisdom does not come from studying great theories and philosophies, but from observing the regular.

The Market lacks any exciting quality or anything fascinating about it, and so we can become very restless and averse to it.  Our desire is always to ‘get’ something, to find something that will interest and absorb us without any effort on our part. 

For example, if we hear some music, we don’t think, ‘I must concentrate on this fascinating and exciting rhythmic music’ we can’t stop ourselves, because the rhythm is so compelling that it pulls us in.  The rhythm of the market is not interesting or compelling, it is tranquillizing, and most beings aren’t used to tranquility.  Most people like the idea of peace, but find the actual experience of it disappointing or frustrating.  People and markets desire stimulation, something that will draw them into itself.  

With a lack of a point of view we stay with an object that is quite neutral, we don’t have any strong feelings of like or dislike for markets and just note the beginning of a move, its middle, and end"

-Written by Me

There is an explanation for every price movement?

"These days, there are many more deep intellectuals in the business, and that, coupled with the explosion of information on the Internet, creates the illusion that there is an explanation for everything and that the primary task is simply to find that explanation. As a result, technical analysis is at the bottom of the study list for many of the younger generation, particularly since the skill often requires them to close their eyes and trust the price action. The pain of gain is just too overwhelming for all of us to bear!"

 -Paul Tudor Jones

Trading Macro

"When trading macro, you never have a complete information set or information edge the way analysts can have when trading individual securities. It's a hell of a lot easier to get an information edge on one stock than it is on the S&P 500. When it comes to trading macro, you cannot rely solely on fundamentals; you have to be a tape reader, which is something of a lost art form."

-Paul Tudor Jones

Baruch

"A speculator is a man who observes the future, and acts before it occurs"

-Bernard Baruch

Eckhardt

"If a betting game among a certain number of participants is played long enough, eventually one player will have all the money. If there is any skill involved, it will accelerate the process of concentrating all the stakes in a few hands. Something like this happens in the market. There is a persistent overall tendency for equity to flow from the many to the few. In the long run, the majority loses. The implication for the trader is that to win you have to act like the minority. If you bring normal human habits and tendencies to trading, you'll gravitate toward the majority and inevitably lose." 

-William Eckhardt

Great Waves

A novice monk approaches his teacher and asks, “Is this a bull market or a bear market?”
The teacher replies, “If it is a warm day, and I say that it is winter, will you still wear your heaviest coat?”

Strictly Success

“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
—Michael Jordan

Renaissance

"Speculation comes in and destroys trends. I am a speculator. It accelerates the trend. It gets you closer to the truth faster."

-James Simons