- Passion. The best investors I’ve seen truly love what they do. It’s the only way they are able to put in the time needed to become great.
- Experience. The pros have seen it all. They’ve been through all sorts of market cycles. Long periods of sideways choppiness, uptrends, and downtrends. And not just the short term 15-20% corrections but the big 50% corrections too.
- Adaptability. Markets change. And the strategies that were working in one market may eventually deteriorate. Good traders will change their methodology to match the new market conditions.
- No ego. None. If you go into trading with an ego the market will eat you alive. The elite investors are able to admit when they’re wrong. They even embrace it. Being wrong quickly means they can move on to being right faster.
- Emotionless. This goes hand in hand with ego. Along with pride, investors face a daily trio of emotions of hope, fear, and greed. The worst investors allow their emotions to control their trading; the best avoid any emotional attachment at all.
- Patience. Many of the best have the patience to wait for the right opportunity to present itself. They don’t force it. As Jesse Livermore famously said, “Throughout all my years of investing I’ve found that the big money was never made in the buying or the selling. The big money was made in the waiting.”
- Flexibility. The best managers are able to turn on a dime. Make a mistake? No worries. Cut your losses and get out. The greats do this without thinking about it. And will even reverse those positions if they are confident enough.
- Risk Control. I saved this one for last on purpose. It all starts and ends here. The best investors always have a lazer beam focus on risk controls. This varies person to person but they never risk more than [insert some small number] percent of their portfolio on any individual trade.
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