Friday, 29 November 2013

A Quote That Gave Some Cheer

I've been rummaging through that Market Wizards book again (as I'm sure we all traders do from time to time) and came across the Larry Hite interview. A couple of sentences seemed to jump out at me a couple of nights ago.

"There are really four kinds of bets: good bets, bad bets, winning bets and losing bets. Most people think that a losing trade was a bad bet,  That is absolutely wrong.  You can lose money even on a good bet. If the odds on a bet are 50/50 and the pay off is $2 vesus a $1 risk,  that is a good bet even if you lose".

It goes on a but this covers the gist of this particular Hite monologue.  To me the most interesting sentences in this group were.

"There are really four kinds of bets: good bets, bad bets, winning bets and losing bets". 
"You can lose money even on a good bet". 

 I of course know this but its the way in which he phrases it that it particularly pleasing (it's crudeness). In my head when I read these sentences back together I wanted to add to end "the only bet you need to avoid is the bad bet". On further thought I thought this could probably replace "you can lose money even on a good bet" So it reads...

"There are really four kinds of bets: good bets, bad bets, winning bets and losing bets. The only bet you need to avoid is the bad bet".

I actually haven't been taking terrible trades this week (one porker) and this quote helped remind me that I'm not doing as badly as I thought and even helped confirm/point to what I need to work on.  My entries are okay.  My trade management/discipline and reading price need work. And this is what I'm working on. 

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