Richard Wyckoff Quotes

“A doubtful egg is nearly always a bad egg.”

“A sound idea is like a pebble thrown into a pool. The circles of its influence continually widen.”

“Anyone who buys or sells a stock, a bond or a commodity for profit is speculating if he employs intelligent foresight. If he does not, he is gambling.”

“Good coffee is a benefit, but great coffee is a reward, and the difference between good and great is just pennies a day.”

“I have yet to find a man, in or out of Wall Street, who is able to make money in markets continuously or uninterruptedly. Like anyone else, I have good and bad periods.”

“I noticed a very marked tendency to accept a small profit and stand for a big loss.”

“Listen to what the market is saying about others, not what others are saying about the market.”

“People are successful in business because, while they make mistakes at first, they study these mistakes and avoid them in the future. Then by gradually acquiring a knowledge of the basic principles of success, they develop into good business men. But how many apply this rule to investing and trading? Very few do any studying at all. Very few take the subject seriously. They drift into the market, very often get ‘nipped’ as the saying is, avoid it for a while, return from time to time with similar results, then gradually drift away from it, without ever having given themselves a chance to develop into what might be good traders or intelligent investors. This is all wrong. People go seriously into the study of medicine, the law, dentistry, or they take up with strong purpose the business of manufacturing or merchandising. But very few ever go deeply into this vital subject (of trading and investing) which should seriously be undertaken by all.”

“Reading all the financial news and evaluating it will avail you nothing. The market may rise on bad news and go down on good news. Then where are you?”

“Sometimes it is scientific to go with the crowd; at other times it is scientific to go against the crowd. The main thing is to be right.”

“Stock market technique is not an exact science. Stock (and commodities) prices are made by the minds of men (and women).”

“Success in trading means excess of profits over losses. If anyone tells you they can almost be invariably successful, put him down as trying to impose on your credulity.”

“The approach is not to limit the choice, but to provide a broader choice. It's appropriate to have choices that are indulgent and others that are better for you.”

“The best inside information is on the tape. I would rather follow its indications than act on a tip from J.P. Morgan himself.”

“The market always tells you what to do. It tells you: Get in. Get out. Move your stop. Close out. Stay neutral. Wait for a better chance. All these things the market is continually impressing upon you, and you must get into the frame of mind where you are in reality taking your orders from the action of the market itself — from the tape.”

“The tape is like a moving picture film. Every minute of the day it is demonstrating whether supply or demand is the greater. Prices are constantly showing strength or weakness: strength when buyers predominate and weakness when the offerings overpower the buyers. All the various phases from dullness to activity; from strength to weakness; from depression to boom, and from the top of the market down to the bottom – all these are faithfully recorded on the tape.

All these movements, small or great, demonstrate the workings of the Law of Supply and Demand. By transferring to the charts portions of what appears on the tape, for study and forecasting purposes, one is more readily enabled to make deductions with accuracy.”

“The tape is the best guide... The Law of Supply and Demand never fails and it is the only safe guide under these extraordinary conditions. No one can judge the probable trend of the market from the study of fundamental statistics, economic changes or political development, with any continued success.”

“Whenever a (market) situation is not entirely clear to me, I find I can clarify it by putting down on paper all the facts, classifying them as favorable and unfavorable. In thus writing it down on paper, I not only have time to reason out each point as I go along, but when I get it all down it can be looked over an analyzed to much better advantage.”

“While I have made it a practice to limit my risk in most cases, I can trace most of my principal losses to my failure to place stop orders when the trades were made.”

“You need never read anything on the financial page of your newspaper except the table of stock prices and volumes.”

“I not only aim to make money, but to keep it and make it grow.”

“Never get married to a security.”

“The investor who always chooses securities of companies who constantly put money back into their properties, will scarcely ever go wrong.”

“The trained man has all the advantages on his side; the untrained man invites all the tragic possibilities of failure.”

“There is no place in the modern world for the unskilled; no one can hope for any genuine success who fails to give himself the most complete special education.”

“You should either make a business of trading or else not try to be a trader. You cannot be successful at trading any more than you can be at mining, manufacturing, doctoring or anything else, unless you are trained for it.”

“The average man or woman never makes a success of day trading by reading moment by moment transactions of the market. Man or woman seldom makes a success of anything! That is true of trading stocks, business endeavors or even hobbies! Success in day trading usually results from years of painstaking effort and absolute concentration upon the subject. It requires the devotion of one's whole time and attention to – the tape. He should have no other business or profession. A man cannot serve two masters, and the tape is a tyrant.”

“A miner must understand how dynamite works before he can safely use it.”

“A profit is not a profit until it is realized.”

“A stop-order a few points away is insurance against a large loss in case you are wrong.”

“A sure way to avoid big investment losses: Once a week close out every investment that shows a loss. Keep only those which are moving your favor.”

“Are you riding a dead horse? Get off and get on a live one.”

“Beethoven's sonatas are in any piano if you just happen to hit the right notes, and there is big money in Wall Street for anyone who learns how to play the market.”

“Cheap advice is plentiful.”

“Do not expect your ship to come in unless you have sent one out.”

“Do not operate for the sake of making trades, but only for the purpose of making money.”

“Don't think because you own a stock it can't go down much farther. Any stock can go anywhere.”

“Hearsay is half lies.”

“How much could you have saved in the past few years if you had known how to limit your risk and when to sell out?”

“How to have lots of money with which to buy bargains in slumps and depression: Sell out in booms.”

“If everybody had placed a stop order on stocks held and purchases made in 1929, there would have been no panic.”

“If insiders traded like outsiders, the insiders would soon be outsiders.”

“In stock trading you must have plenty of nerve but no 'nerves'.”

“It is better to lose the saddle than the horse.”

“Look for your money where you lost it.”

“Losses are punishment for bad judgment.”

“Never buy an egg until it is laid.”

“Successful trading depends on a systematic control of losses and the securing of profits in excess of those losses.”

“Take advice only from those who have been successful.”

“The more statistics, the more confusion.”

“The most perfect example of following the trend would be a monkey clinging to the back of a boa constrictor as it wriggled through the jungle.”

“The only fundamental factor that really counts in the stock market is The Law of Supply and Demand.”

“Trading without scientifically limiting your risk is like wearing your pants without a belt or suspenders.”

“When in doubt, stay out. If you are in, and grow doubtful, get out.”

“Where certainty ends, speculation begins.”

“I do not know of any other profession which may be entered under such conditions: where there is no competition; wherein a trader may depend solely upon himself; control his own funds, and ask no one for advice.”

“If you have knowledge, let others light their candles at it.”

“Luck is a much overworked alibi.”

“The victory of success is half won when one gains the habit of work.”

“To trade in stocks and gain an ultimate profit is very difficult; most people do not succeed because they never learn how to trade. They think they are investing when they really are speculating.”

“Try and recall all the big losses you ever had. Then remember that every one of them – without exception – could have been avoided if you had been wise enough to accept a small loss when the stock went against you.”

“Especially he who puts his knowledge into actual practice, is constantly evolving new ideas and making discoveries which modify or nullify his former methods. From each new elevation he enjoys a broader view; what were obstacles disappear; his problems gradually simplify.”

“Frequent requests are made for the name of someone who will teach the Art of Tape Reading. I do not know of anyone able to read the tape with profit who is willing to become an instructor. The reason is very simple. Profits from the tape far exceed anything that might be earned by charging tuition fees to his students. It's simple economics.”

“Mental poise is an indispensable factor in tape reading. The mind should be absolutely free to concentrate upon the work; there should be no feeling that certain things are to be accomplished within a given time; no fear, anxiety, or greed.”

“Successful tape reading is a study of force; it requires ability to judge which side has the greatest pulling power and one must have the courage to go with that side.”

“The tape is a tyrant.”

“The tape reader’s profits should develop naturally. He should buy or sell because it is the thing to do – not because he wants to make a profit or fears to make a loss.”

“When a tape reader has his emotions well in hand, he will play as though the game were dominoes.”

“Why was one of these men able to amass a fortune, while the other never acquired more than a few thousand dollars at the same pursuit?”

“By keeping the stock low and depressed, the large operator discourages other people from buying it and induces more short selling. He may, by various means, spread bearish reports on the stock. All this helps him to buy. When he is thus buying and selling to accumulate, he necessarily causes the price to move up and down, forming the familiar trading ranges, or congestion areas, which appear frequently on figure charts.”

“The large operator does not, as a rule, go into a campaign unless he sees in prospect a movement of from 10 to 50 points. Livermore once told me he never touched anything unless there were at least 10 points in it according to his calculations.”

“The preparation of an important move in the market takes a considerable time. A large operator or investor acting singly cannot often, in a single day's session, buy 25,000 to 100,000 shares of stock without putting the price up too much. Instead, he takes days, weeks or months in which to accumulate his line in one or many stocks.”

“Those who understand it buy only when prices are low with the idea of selling when they are high; and they operate only in the stocks or commodities which they can move best so they may secure the highest possible rate of turnover of inventories.”

“When a large operator wishes to accumulate a line, he raids the market for that stock, makes it look very weak, and gives it the appearance of heavy liquidation by sending in selling orders through a great number of brokers.”

“When you have learned to take a wholly impartial viewpoint, unbiased by news, gossip, opinions and your own prejudices, you will realize that the stock market is like any other merchandising business.”

“You have often noticed that a stock will sell at the highest price for many months on the very day when a stock dividend, or some very bullish news, appears in print. This is not mere accident.

The whole move is manufactured. Its purpose is to make money for inside interests — those who are operating in the stock in a large way. And this can only be done by fooling the public, or by inducing the public to fool themselves.”