Top 25 Alexander Elder Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “The goal of a successful trader is to make the best trades. Money is secondary.”

— Alexander Elder

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2. “Remember, your goal is to trade well, not to trade often.”

— Alexander Elder

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3. “To be a good trader, you need to trade with your eyes open, recognize real trends and turns, and not waste time or energy on regrets and wishful thinking.”

— Alexander Elder

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4. “The market does not know you exist. You can do nothing to influence it. You can only control your behavior.”

— Alexander Elder

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5. “Every winner needs to master three essential components of trading; a sound individual psychology, a logical trading system and good money management. These essentials are like three legs of a stool – remove one and the stool will fall, together with the person who sits on it.”

— Alexander Elder

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6. “Beginners focus on analysis, but professionals operate in a three dimensional space. They are aware of trading psychology, their own feelings, and the mass psychology of the markets.”

— Alexander Elder

7. “The markets are unforgiving, and emotional trading always results in losses.”

— Alexander Elder

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8. “When a beginner wins, he feels brilliant and invincible. Then, he takes wild risk and loses everything.”

— Alexander Elder

9. “Many traders ride an emotional roller coaster and miss the essential element of winning: the management of their emotions.”

— Alexander Elder

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10. “Amateurs look for challenges; professionals look for easy trades. Losers get high from the action; the pros look for the best odds.”

— Alexander Elder

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11. “Traders lose because the game is hard, or out of ignorance, or lack of discipline or because of both.”

— Alexander Elder

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12. “To win in the markets, we need to master three essential components of trading: sound psychology, a logical trading system, and an effective risk management plan.”

— Alexander Elder

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13. “Losers bring money into the market which is necessary for the prosperity of the trading industry.”

— Alexander Elder

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14. “A loser’s true problem is not account size but overtrading and sloppy money management. He takes risks that are too big for his account size, however small or big. No matter how good his system may be, a streak of bad trades is sure to put him out of business.”

— Alexander Elder

Featured in: Financial Success Quotes

15. “It is hard enough to know what the market is going to do; if you don’t know what you are going to do, the game is lost.”

— Alexander Elder

Featured in: Stock Market Quotes

16. “To help ensure success, practice defensive money management. A good trader watches his capital as carefully as a professional scuba diver watches his air supply.”

— Alexander Elder

Featured in: Financial Success Quotes

17. “Being simply “better than average” is not good enough. You have to be head and shoulders above the crowd to win a minus-sum game.”

— Alexander Elder

18. “An astute trader aims to enter the market during quiet times and take profits during wild times.”

— Alexander Elder

19. “The mental baggage from childhood can prevent you from succeeding in the markets. You have to identify your weaknesses and work to change. Keep a trading diary – write down your reasons for entering and exiting every trade. Look for repetitive patterns of success and failure.”

— Alexander Elder

20. “The public wants gurus, and new gurus will come. As an intelligent trader, you must realize that in the long run, no guru is going to make you rich. You have to work on that yourself.”

— Alexander Elder

21. “Why do most traders lose and wash out of the markets? Emotional and mindless trading are big reasons, but there is another. Markets are actually set up so that most traders must lose money. The trading industry slowly kills traders with commissions and slippage.”

— Alexander Elder

22. “People trade for many reasons – some rational and many irrational. Trading offers an opportunity to make a lot of money in a hurry. Money symbolizes freedom to many people, even though they often don’t know what to do with it.”

— Alexander Elder

23. “Use limit orders almost exclusively – except when placing stops. Be careful on what tools you spend money: there are no magic solutions. Success cannot be bought, only earned.”

— Alexander Elder

24. “Markets need a fresh supply of losers just as builders of the ancient pyramids needed a fresh supply of slaves. Losers bring money into the markets, which is necessary for the prosperity of the trading industry.”

— Alexander Elder

25. “There are good trading systems out there, but they have to be monitored and adjusted using individual judgment. You have to stay on the ball – you cannot abdicate responsibility for your success to a mechanical system.”

— Alexander Elder

26. “The answer is to draw a line between a businessman’s risk and a loss. As traders, we always take businessman’s risks, but we may never take a loss greater than this predetermined risk.”

— Alexander Elder

27. “So far, the only people who’ve made money from trading systems are their sellers.”

— Alexander Elder