“I understood that stocks don’t go up and stay up because of stories, tips, or people’s opinions; they go up for specific reasons. I was determined to find those reasons, shut out the world, and then act on my own knowledge.”
“The fundamentals of the stock are only about 25 percent of it… Another 25 percent is technical… Another 25 percent is watching how a stock responds to different information: macroeconomic events, its own news flow… The last 25 percent is my gut feeling for the direction of the market as a whole, which is based on my sense of how the market is responding to macroeconomic news and other events. It’s almost like looking at the entire market as if it were an individual stock.”
“I get out either because the stock looks as though it’s rolling over, and I am in danger of losing what I have made, or because the stock has made too much money in too short a period of time.”
“My philosophy is to float like a jellyfish and let the market push me where it wants to go. I don’t draw a line in the sand and say this is my strategy and I’m going to wait for the market to come to me. I try to figure out what strategies are working in the market. One year it might be momentum, another year it might be value.”
“Sometimes the opportunities are so obvious that you almost can’t lose when they come around; the only problem is that they don’t come around that often. The key is not to lose money in the times in between.”
“I constantly evaluate market sentiment – is the market hopeful? Is it fearful? – and wait for the price action to confirm my assessment.”
“By cleaning out my portfolio and reinvesting in solid stocks I made back much more money than I would have if I had kept the other stocks and waited for a dead cat bounce.”
“Currently, the biggest misconception is the widespread belief that it is easy to make a living trading in the stock market. People feel they can give up their jobs and trade for a living; most of them are bound to be disappointed.”
Stuart Walton
http://www.bigfatpurse.com/2011/04/stock-market-wizards-by-jack-schwager/