Paul Tudor Jones Quotes

Where you want to be is always in control, never wishing, always trading, and always first and foremost protecting your ass. That's why most people lose money as individual investors or traders because they're not focusing on losing money. They need to focus on the money that they have at risk and how much capital is at risk in any single investment they have. If everyone spent 90 percent of their time on that, not 90 percent of the time on pie-in-the-sky ideas on how much money they're going to make, then they will be incredibly successful investors.

I'm always thinking about losing money as opposed to making money. Don't focus on making money, focus on protecting what you have

If I have positions going against me, I get right out; if they are going for me, I keep them Risk control is the most important thing in trading. If you have a losing position that is making you uncomfortable, the solution is very simple: Get out, because you can always get back in.

The most important rule is to play great defense, not great offense. Everyday I assume every position I have is wrong. I know where my stop risk points are going to be. I do that so I can define my maximum drawdown. Hopefully, I spend the rest of the day enjoying positions that are going in my direction. If they are going against me, then I have a game plan for getting out.

Don't be a hero. Don't have an ego. Always question yourself and your ability. Don't ever feel that you are very good. The second you do, you are dead.

I believe the very best money is made at the market turns. Everyone says you get killed trying to pick tops and bottoms and you make all your money by playing the trend in the middle. Well for twelve years I have been missing the meat in the middle but I have made a lot of money at tops and bottoms.

I always believe that prices move first and fundamentals come second

Fundamentals might be good for the first third or first 50 or 60 percent of a move, but the last third of a great bull market is typically a blow-off, whereas the mania runs wild and prices go parabolic... There is no training, classroom or otherwise, that can prepare for trading the last third of a move, whether it's the end of a bull market or the end of a bear market.

Don’t ever average losers. Decrease your trading volume when you are trading poorly; increase your volume when you are trading well. Never trade in situations where you don’t have control. For example, I don’t risk significant amounts of money in front of key reports, since that is gambling, not trading.

I am more scared now that I was at any point since I began trading, because I recognize how ephemeral success can be in this business. I know that to be successful, I have to be frightened. My biggest hits have always come after I have had a great period and I started to think that I knew something.

The secret to being successful from a trading perspective is to have an indefatigable and an undying and unquenchable thirst for information and knowledge.

And then at the end of the day, the most important thing is how good are you at risk control. Ninety-percent of any great trader is going to be the risk control.

First of all, never play macho man with the market. Second, never overtrade.

I spend my day trying to make myself as happy and relaxed as I can be. If I have positions going against me, I get right out; if they are going for me, I keep them.

Failure was a key element to my life’s journey.

The concept of paying one-hundred-and-something times earnings for any company for me is just anathema. Having said that, at the end of the day, your job is to buy what goes up and to sell what goes down so really who gives a damn about PE's?

You can not have significance in this life if it is all about you. You get your significance, you find your joy in life through service and sacrifice - it's pure and simple.

If life ever ceased to be an educational experience. I probably wouldn't get out of bed in the morning.

When you get a range expansion, the market is sending you a very loud, clear signal that the market is getting ready to move in the direction of that expansion.

Sometimes failure is merely chasing you off the wrong road and onto the right one.

You adapt, evolve, compete or die.

It is not that we had any unfair knowledge that other people didn't have, it is just that we did our homework. People just don't want to believe that anyone can break away from the crowd and rise above mediocrity.

Intellectual capital will always trump financial capital.

That cotton trade was almost the deal breaker for me. It was at that point that I said, “Mr. Stupid, why risk everything on one trade? Why not make your life a pursuit of happiness rather than pain?

First if all, never play macho man in the market. Second, never overtrade. My major problem was not the number of points I lost on the trade, but that I was trading far too many contracts relative to the equity in the accounts that I handled.

My off-the-cuff remarks at the University of Virginia were with regard to global macro traders, who are on-call 24/7 and of whom there are likely only a few thousand successful practitioners in the world today. Macro trading requires a high degree of skill, focus and repetition. Life events, such as birth, divorce, death of a loved one and other emotional highs and lows are obstacles to success in this specific field of finance.

You learn more from your losses, than from your gains.

As I've told my three daughters, all of whom I've at one time encouraged to go into macro trading, any man or woman can do anything to which they set their heart and mind.

There is no training, classroom or otherwise, that can prepare for trading the last third of a move, whether it's the end of a bull market or the end of a bear market.

We have ripped the humanity out of our companies. It's threatening the very underpinnings of our society.

You can achieve great economic gains by solving social problems.

I believe that great success is possible in any field — from music to mathematics to macro trading.

Don't be a hero. Don't have an ego.

After awhile size means nothing. It gets back to whether you're making 100% rate of return on 10k or 100 million dollars. It doesn't make any difference.

Trading gives you an incredibly intense feeling of what life is all about.

The whole world is simply nothing more than a flow chart for capital.

If trading is like chess, then macro is like three-dimensional chess.

There is no more compassionate and effective way to help poor people in New York City than to give to Robin Hood.

There's such an emphasis on making money that we've really taken the humanity out of business.