Top 20 Trading quotes by Alexander Elder

One of the best ways to learn trading skills is to study those who have already found massive success.

Legendary traders such as Jesse Livermore, Paul Tudor Jones, Ed Seykota, Jack Schwager, Alexander Elder, Mark Douglas and Marty Schwartz have a lot to share with us on trading.

In this article, we have compiled top 20 trading quotes by Alexander Elder. At the end you will also get a few more trading quotes to help you improve your trading skills.

Alexander Elder is a famous trader and the author of many international best-seller trading books which includes “The New Trading for a Living”. Whether you are already into trading or just starting out your trading journey, you will find a lot of value in his books.

We have compiled top 20 trading quotes by Alexander Elder for you.

Amateurs look for challenges; professionals look for easy trades. Losers get high from the action; the pros look for the best odds.

-Alexander Elder

To be a good trader, you need to trade with your eyes open, recognize real trends and turns, and not waste time or energy on regrets and wishful thinking.

-Alexander Elder

When a beginner wins he feels brilliant and invincible. Then he takes wild risk and loses everything.

-Alexander Elder

Losers bring money into the market which is necessary for the prosperity of the trading industry.

-Alexander Elder

The markets are unforgiving, and emotional trading always results in losses.

-Alexander Elder

The goal of a successful trader is to make the best trades. Money is secondary.

-Alexander Elder

Remember, your goal is to trade well, not to trade often.

-Alexander Elder

The market does not know you exist. You can do nothing to influence it. You can only control your behavior.

-Alexander Elder

Being simply “better than average” is not good enough. You have to be head and shoulders above the crowd to win a minus-sum game.

-Alexander Elder

There are good trading systems out there, but they have to be monitored and adjusted using individual judgment. You have to stay on the ball—you cannot abdicate responsibility for your success to a mechanical system.

-Alexander Elder

Beginners focus on analysis, but professionals operate in a three-dimensional space. They are aware of trading psychology, their own feelings, and the mass psychology of the markets.

-Alexander Elder

To win in the markets, we need to master three essential components of trading: sound psychology, a logical trading system, and an effective risk management plan.

-Alexander Elder

It is hard enough to know what the market is going to do; if you don’t know what you are going to do, the game is lost.

-Alexander Elder

A loser’s true problem is not account size but overtrading and sloppy money management. He takes risks that are too big for his account size, however small or big. No matter how good his system may be, a streak of bad trades is sure to put him out of business.

-Alexander Elder

The mental baggage from childhood can prevent you from succeeding in the markets. You have to identify your weaknesses and work to change. Keep a trading diary—write down your reasons for entering and exiting every trade. Look for repetitive patterns of success and failure.

-Alexander Elder

To help ensure success, practice defensive money management. A good trader watches his capital as carefully as a professional scuba diver watches his air supply.

-Alexander Elder

An astute trader aims to enter the market during quiet times and take profits during wild times.

-Alexander Elder

If you let the market make you feel high or low, you will lose money.

-Alexander Elder

When the market deviates from your analysis, you have to cut losses without fuss or emotions.

-Alexander Elder

If you let the market make you feel high or low, you will lose money.

-Alexander Elder

Here are few more trading quotes for you;

I’m always thinking about losing money as opposed to making money. Don’t focus on making money, focus on protecting what you have.

-Paul Tudor Jones

Don’t be a hero. Don’t have an ego. Always question yourself and your ability. Don’t ever feel that you are very good. The second you do, you are dead.

-Paul Tudor Jones

And then at the end of the day, the most important thing is how good are you at risk control. Ninety-percent of any great trader is going to be the risk control.

-Paul Tudor Jones

Don’t ever average losers. Decrease your trading volume when you are trading poorly; increase your volume when you are trading well. Never trade in situations where you don’t have control. For example, I don’t risk significant amounts of money in front of key reports, since that is gambling, not trading.

-Paul Tudor Jones

I think one of my strengths is that I view anything that has happened up to the present point in time as history. I really don’t care about the mistake I made three seconds ago in the market. What I care about is what I am going to do from the next moment on. I try to avoid any emotional attachment to a market.

-Paul Tudor Jones

In order of importance to me are: 1) the long term trend, 2) the current chart pattern, and 3) picking a good spot to buy or sell.

-Ed Seykota

If you want to know everything about the market, go to the beach. Push and pull your hands with the waves. Some are bigger waves, some are smaller. But if you try to push the wave out when it’s coming in, it’ll never happen. The market is always right.

-Ed Seykota

Trading requires skill at reading the markets and at managing your own anxieties.

-Ed Seykota

It can be very expensive to try to convince the markets you are right.

-Ed Seykota

A trading system is an agreement you make between yourself and the markets.

-Ed Seykota

The elements of good trading are (1) cutting losses, (2) cutting losses, and (3) cutting losses. If you can follow these three rules, you may have a chance.

-Ed Seykota

There is no single market secret to discover, no single correct way to trade the markets. Those seeking the one true answer to the markets haven’t even gotten as far as asking the right question, let alone getting the right answer.

-Jack Schwager – Author of Market Wizards

The hard work in trading comes in the preparation. The actual process of trading, however, should be effortless.

-Jack Schwager – Author of Market Wizards