Remember this: When you are doing nothing, those speculators who feel they must trade day in and day out, are laying the foundation for your next venture. You will reap benefits from their mistakes.

Never buy at the bottom, and always sell too soon.

The average man doesn't wish to be told that it is a bull or a bear market. What he desires is to be told specifically which particular stock to buy or sell. He wants to get something for nothing. He does not wish to work. He doesn't even wish to have to think.

Just remember, without discipline, a clear strategy, and a concise plan, the speculator will fall into all the emotional pitfalls of the market - jump from one stock to another, hold a losing position too long, and cut out of a winner too soon, for no reason other than fear of losing profit. Greed, Fear, Impatience, Ignorance, and Hope will all fight for mental dominance over the speculator. Then, after a few failures and catastrophes the speculator may become demoralised, depressed, despondent, and abandon the market and the chance to make a fortune from what the market has to offer.

There is nothing new in Wall Street. There can't be because speculation is as old as the hills. Whatever happens in the stock market today has happened before and will happen again.

Men who can both be right and sit tight are uncommon. I found it one of the hardest things to learn. But it is only after a stock operator has firmly grasped this that he can make big money.

They say you never grow poor taking profits. No, you don't. But neither do you grow rich taking a four-point profit in a bull market. Where I should have made twenty thousand dollars I made two thousand. That was what conservatism did for me.