Hope And Fear

  • October 1, 2001
  • Edwin Lefevre

The speculator’s chief enemies are
always boring from within. It is inseparable from human nature to hope and to
fear. When the market goes against you, you hope that every day will be the last
day–and you lose more than you should had you not listened to hope. And when
the market goes your way you become fearful that the next day will take away
your profit, and you get out–too soon. The successful trader has to reverse
what you might call his natural impulses.

—Edwin
Lefèvre, from Reminiscences
of a Stock Operator (1994, John Wiley & Sons, New York).