Quotes About Risk

There's no point in sticking your pecker down a gun barrel to pee on the bullet, just to prove you have balls. That's a one-time deal and they don't give medals to peckerless pilots.

What begins as a banking crisis ends with a banking crisis, even if it goes through the states' accounts.

First of all, let's establish something. If the United States ever gets to the point that it cannot roll over its debt, the supposed big fear, we can safely assume that all other sovereign debt alternatives are already dead.

Banking bubbles and busts cause sovereign debt crises.

In the world's most dangerous country, the job of going after Pablo was the most dangerous position of all.

It is harder to defend a computer than to attack it.

Westin celebrated the New Year by shooting off some hand flares. Orders were "no fireworks," but you couldn't expect several hundred thousand men in a war zone, armed to the teeth with explosive devices, to follow an order like that.

Or, when an artist hungry for validation finally receives some, there's a temptation to play to those who offered it, and with that comes the risk of imitating oneself, producing paler, anemic versions of the vital art that you made with no notion of where it was headed, before you'd made anything to imitate.

I AM A CONSISTENT WINNER BECAUSE: 1. I objectively identify my edges. 2. I predefine the risk of every trade. 3. I completely accept the risk or I am willing to let go of the trade. 4. I act on my edges without reservation or hesitation. 5. I pay myself as the market makes money available to me. 6. I continually monitor my susceptibility for making errors. 7. I understand the absolute necessity of these principles of consistent success and, therefore, I never violate them.

Most traders have absolutely no concept of what it means to be a risk-taker in the way a successful trader thinks about risk. The best traders not only take the risk, they have also learned to accept and embrace that risk. There is a huge psychological gap between assuming you are a risk-taker because you put on trades and fully accepting the risks inherent in each trade. When you fully accept the risks, it will have profound implications on your bottom-line performance.

When you learn the trading skill of risk acceptance, the market will not be able to generate information that you define or interpret as painful. If the information the market generates doesn't have the potential to cause you emotional pain, there's nothing to avoid. It is just information, telling you what the possibilities are. This is called an objective perspective—one that is not skewed or distorted by what you are afraid is going to happen or not happen.

The hard, cold reality of trading is that every trade has an uncertain outcome.

When you learn the trading skill of risk acceptance, the market will not be able to generate information that you define or interpret as painful.

What motivated it? How was the trade managed? Was it successful? Why? Did you lose? Why? Write down your assessment and refer to your comments before making your next trade.

The best traders aren't afraid. They aren't afraid because they have developed attitudes that give them the greatest degree of mental flexibility to flow in and out of trades based on what the market is telling them about the possibilities from its perspective. At the same time, the best traders have developed attitudes that prevent them from getting reckless.

Learning to accept the risk is a trading skill—the most important skill you can learn. Yet

Unless you learn to completely accept the possibility of an uncertain outcome, you will try either consciously or unconsciously to avoid any possibility you define as painful.

Or you can learn how to redefine your trading activities in such a way that you truly accept the risk, and you're no longer afraid.

If you are unable to trade without the slightest bit of emotional discomfort (specifically, fear), then you have not learned how to accept the risks inherent in trading. This is a big problem, because to whatever degree you haven't accepted the risk, is the same degree to which you will avoid the risk. Trying to avoid something that is unavoidable will have disastrous effects on your ability to trade successfully.

Learning to accept the risk is a trading skill—the most important skill you can learn.

I define random trading as poorly-planned trades or trades that are not planned at all. It is an unorganized approach that takes into consideration an unlimited set of market variables, which do not allow you to find out what works on a consistent basis and what does not.

attitudes about being wrong, losing money, missing out, and leaving money on the table.

When you genuinely accept the risks, you will be at peace with any outcome. When you're at peace with any outcome, you will experience a carefree, objective state of mind, where you make yourself available to perceive and act upon whatever the market is offering you (from its perspective) at any given "now moment.

Everyone who trades ends up learning something about the markets; very few people who trade ever learn the attitudes that are absolutely essential to becoming a consistent winner.