The Best Forex Trading Quotes You Will Need In A Lifetime

While, technically speaking, forex trading is all about knowing what to trade and when, the truth here appears a bit more complex. While we may have the knowledge and be good at something, if we happen to lack motivation, then the potential to succeed is diminished.

The forex market can be particularly tough for starters because learning how it works is not so easy. You’re expected to have losses at times, and profits are extremely thin – to the point where at first, you might be making the wrong moves.

However, those experiences are gems that we can learn with, and eventually shape us into successful traders. To help you a bit with the process, we have gathered a few of the most helpful and interesting forex motivational quotes.

On why knowledge is your best weapon

“Risk Comes From Not Knowing What You’re Doing”

– Warren Buffet

Warren Buffet (who, if you didn’t know, is probably the wealthiest global investor) puts knowledge in a class of its own- Traders who know what they’re doing don’t take huge risks. That doesn’t mean successful traders never lose on a trade (they do, and more often than you would think,) but successful traders who know their stuff never lose everything – first of all, because somebody who knows the market never risks everything to begin with.

“I believe in analysis and not forecasting.”

– Nicolas Darvas

Here, Darvas also goes out to defend knowledge over the idea of “predicting” the market as if making money in forex was something you could attain with a crystal ball. If you know the market, you’ll know what to expect – and you’ll be able to act on it. Leave predicting the future to magicians at the arcade, and when trading forex, use knowledge instead.

“Luck is preparation meeting opportunity.”

– Oprah

This quote doesn’t come from a forex expert, but from somebody who is nonetheless ridiculously successful – and it applies perfectly to trading. People who make huge amounts of money in the market aren’t just lucky. They’re prepared, and that preparation allows them to recognize and seize opportunities as they unfold.

“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

Perhaps one of the best forex quotes out there, Seykota here tells us how we should see the market. Rather than trying to make money, our goal in forex should be to cut our losses and don’t lose money. Don’t get greedy and try to make lots – instead be conservative and try to lose little. By doing something as simple as not losing, you’ll be winning anyway.

On losses, and how to take them

“In This Business If You’re Good, You’re Right Six Times Out Of Ten. You’re Never Going to Be Right Nine Times out Of Ten”

– Peter Lynch

Lynch is onto something here. While wildly successful traders might be right more than six times out of ten, nobody is infallible. Every single forex (or stock or crypto) trader out there has to take losses now and then. Markets, after all, can’t quite be infinitely predicted and all the knowledge and analysis in the world won’t shield you from unexpected developments that make markets switch after you’ve committed.

“Losses are necessary, as long as they are associated with a technique to help you learn from them”

― David Sikhosana

Since nobody ever wins all the time, the best you can do when you lose – and once again, you will lose, many times – is learn from your loss. What did you do wrong? Which part of your analysis or expectations was off the mark? Did you fail to take a variable into account? Losing is more than just taking a loss, it’s about learning from that loss.

“The game taught me the game. And it didn’t spare me the rod while teaching.”

– Jesse Livermore

You only learn to trade by trading. You can read books and articles and talk to people a lot, and that will help, but nothing will ever prepare you for actual trading other than doing so. You’ll only learn to make money in the market by losing money in it. So when you get hit by the rod, understand that’s how every single trader out there got better. Nobody just waltzed into a forex exchange one day and walk out with millions of dollars at the end of the day.

“If You Personalize Losses, You Can’t Trade”

― Bruce Kovner

This is more of a personal-level quote, but incredibly useful and powerful for newbie traders. As with any competitive market (and let’s be clear here – the forex market is competitive) you will win and lose. However, you can’t take losses as personal failures and get depressed over them. Just see what went wrong, learn from it, move on.

If you take losses personal, then every time you lose (and you will lose a lot) you’ll end up full of grief. That grief will affect your performance and only lead you to losing even more.

“When I get hurt in the market, I get the hell out. It doesn’t matter at all where the market is trading. I just get out, because I believe that once you’re hurt in the market, your decisions are going to be far less objective than they are when you’re doing well… If you stick around when the market is severely against you, sooner or later they are going to carry you out.”

– Randy McKay

Keeping with the subject of dealing with losses and the grief they can bring; McKay here explains very nicely why trading while you’re hurt or angry at the market is a terrible idea. Feelings get in the way, and the more feelings drive us, the less objective we’ll be in our choices.

Think of a gambler who goes on a losing spree and gets really angry but keeps doing it because “this time I will win.” Do gamblers like that ever win back their money? Most of the time they don’t. Don’t be that gambler.

“That cotton trade was almost the deal breaker for me. It was at that point that I said, ‘Mr. Stupid, why risk everything on one trade? Why not make your life a pursuit of happiness rather than pain?’”

– Paul Tudor Jones

While this isn’t one of the best forex motivational quotes, it is about trading, and it teaches a lot. There’s always some risk in trading, because you can’t know absolutely everything. We can minimize it with knowledge, but there will always be some risk to every trade. So don’t risk everything, ever. Don’t put all your eggs in the same basket, no matter how sure you are you’ll make money from it.

On patience when trading

“Money is made by sitting, not trading.”

– Jesse Livermore

While this might seem like a silly thing to say (after all, you only get money once you trade,) Livermore here is trying to stress how important patience can be. You make money when you learn to wait for the market to move before you make a trade, not when you feel like you must be making a trade every other minute to find success.

“The desire for constant action irrespective of underlying conditions is responsible for many losses in Wall Street even among the professionals, who feel that they must take home some money every day, as though they were working for regular wages.”

– Jesse Livermore

Another Livermore quote that every trader should keep close to their heart. You can’t just trade, trade, trade. There are periods, sometimes long periods, where the best bet is to wait. Making no money during a day or two doesn’t matter if on day three you get a payday big enough to last two weeks.

Patience is key in the market, because while it moves fast, often it’s the slow movements that matter in the end.

“It’s critical for the crocodile to understand its prey and to know where to look for it and remain calm and patient until it arrives. As traders, we have to know what our trading edge looks like and where to look for it and then control ourselves enough to not over-trade before it arrives.”

– Nial Fuller

As far as forex trading motivational quotes come, this one isn’t the best. It is, however, a great way to put how not just knowledge, but patience, can win you the game. As a trader you’re a hunter, and hunters always wait for their prey rather than chasing around wildly.

Conclusion

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”

– Warren Buffett

We’re closing the article with a great forex market quote that, while it may not directly net you money, will help you a lot. Patience isn’t only important while you’re trading, but at all times. Successful traders often become very public figures, followed by thousands – and if you ever develop such a following, you’ll want to think everything twice. Even if you don’t have a following, your reputation is at stake at all times – plus what you say today might come back to bite you years down the road.

References

Author Profile

Fat Finger

Hello everyone!

My name is Phat Fin Ge, but most people just call me Fat Finger or Mr. Finger.

Many years ago, I was a trader on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. I became so successful that my company moved me to their offices on Wall Street. The bull market was strong, but my trading gains always outperformed market averages, until that fateful day.

On October 28th, 1929, I tried to take some profits after Charles Whitney had propped up the prices of US Steel. I was trying to sell 10,000 shares, but my fat finger pressed an extra key twice. My sell order ended up being for 1,290,000 shares. Before I could tell anyone it was an error, everyone panicked and the whole market starting heading down. The next day was the biggest stock market crash ever. In early 1930, I was banned from trading for 85 years.

I went back to Hong Kong to work at my family's goldfish store. Please come and visit us at Phat Goldfish in Kowloon, only a 3 minute walk from the C2 MTR entrance.

I thought everyone would forget about me and planned to quietly return to trading in 2015. To my horror, any error in quantity or price which cause a problem kept getting blamed on Fat Finger, even when it was a mix up and not an extra key being pressed. For example, an error by a seller on the Tokyo Stock Exchange was to sell 610,000 shares at ¥6 instead of 6 shares at ¥610,000. That had nothing to do with me or with how fat the trader's finger was, but everyone kept yelling, "Fat Finger! Fat Finger!" In 2016, people blamed a fat finger for a 6% drop in the GBP. It really was a combination of many things, none to do with me or anyone else who had a wider than average finger.

Now that I can trade again, I'm finding forex more interesting than stocks. I've been doing some research on trading forex and other instruments and I'll be sharing it here.

If you see any typing errors, you can blame those on my fat finmgert. If you see any strange changes in price, it's not my fault.