Tom Hougaard > Quotes

“99% still don’t get it – when they win, they start betting less. Bet more!”
― Tom Hougaard, Best Loser Wins: Why Normal Thinking Never Wins the Trading Game – written by a high-stake day trader

“believe in defining my risk. I don’t believe in defining my reward.”
― Tom Hougaard, Best Loser Wins: Why Normal Thinking Never Wins the Trading Game – written by a high-stake day trader

“In bull markets, resistance is often broken, and in bear markets support rarely holds.”
― Tom Hougaard, Best Loser Wins: Why Normal Thinking Never Wins the Trading Game – written by a high-stake day trader

“Phantom of the Pit. It”
― Tom Hougaard, Best Loser Wins: Why Normal Thinking Never Wins the Trading Game – written by a high-stake day trader

“You must be patient with your trade entries. You must be patient with yourself. If you can bring those two qualities to the table, then the rest will solve itself in time. You will grow your trade size at a pace where your mind will not be alarmed or fearful.”
― Tom Hougaard, Best Loser Wins: Why Normal Thinking Never Wins the Trading Game – written by a high-stake day trader

“No man ever steps in the same river twice,”
― Tom Hougaard, Best Loser Wins: Why Normal Thinking Never Wins the Trading Game – written by a high-stake day trader

“I am exceptionally good at losing.”
― Tom Hougaard, Best Loser Wins: Why Normal Thinking Never Wins the Trading Game – written by a high-stake day trader

“anything in life worth doing is worth overdoing. Moderation is for cowards.”
― Tom Hougaard, Best Loser Wins: Why Normal Thinking Never Wins the Trading Game – written by a high-stake day trader

“Now I have the skills to make money, and I trust that the market will give me opportunities to make money. This trust has been built and strengthened by my intense study of market charts for every period I desire to trade. The trust is further strengthened by my humble dedication to my vocational skillset.
The patience flows from my trust in the market and in myself. I have an emotional connection between trust and patience. I trust the process will come, if I am patient. If I am patient, I will win. Winning does not determine anything else to me. If I am not patient, I will not win. I will do anything to win. Therefore, the trust overrides any sense of impatience that may arise in my mind, because I trust that when I miss this signal, there will be another one coming.
My confidence comes from continuously working on my game. I learn technical analysis once. I learn all the time. Some markets move. Some markets are dead. Some markets require larger stops. Some markets are faster to trade with orders because they move so fast. The markets are forever changing, and I change with them.
The confidence and patience arise from the trust and the patience and the process. Of course, yours truly has bad trading days. I just don’t care. I am grounded in this moment. I focus on the process. That is all I can do. I can’t dictate to the market what it should do. I must be like water, and flow. I must flow with the spirit of the market. I don’t fight the market. I flow with the market. “Just flow,” as I tell myself.”
― Tom Hougaard

“we have all read the axiom of ‘buy low and sell high’. I changed that to ‘sell low and cover lower’ and ‘buy high and sell higher’.”
― Tom Hougaard, Best Loser Wins: Why Normal Thinking Never Wins the Trading Game – written by a high-stake day trader

“In a nutshell, what separates the 10% of winners from the 90% of losers is which brain they are listening to.”
― Tom Hougaard, Best Loser Wins: Why Normal Thinking Never Wins the Trading Game – written by a high-stake day trader

“My trust (in the markets and in myself) supports my patience. My patience (that a setup will materialise) feeds my confidence. My confidence (that I will win) dictates my inner dialogue. My inner dialogue (what I tell myself while I am trading) supports my process-oriented mindset. The process enables me to stay focused in this moment. I support this loop with my mental exercises. They feed, nourish and sustain the loop.

I trust. The research underpins the trust. The trust supports the patience. The patience is underpinned by the mental exercises, and it nourishes my confidence. My internal dialogue is driven by it; it nourishes my confidence. My internal dialogue is driven by a process-oriented mindset, fuelled by my confidence. I focus on what I can control – my mindset, my risk approach – and I let the market do what it wants to do. Whatever it does, does not trigger the fearful side of my mind. That has been trained away. I am not afraid of the market. The only thing I am afraid of is that I do something stupid in the market. If I trust myself, this does not happen.”
― Tom Hougaard, Best Loser Wins: Why Normal Thinking Never Wins the Trading Game – written by a high-stake day trader