right, but not profitable enough?

"although i often was 100 per cent right on the market
that is, in my diagnosis of conditions and general trend
i was not making as much money as my market "rightness" entitled me to.

why wasn't i?

there was as much to learn from partial victory as from
defeat.

for instance,
i had been bullish from the very start of a bull market,
and i had backed my opinion by buying stocks.

an advance followed,
as I had clearly foreseen.

so far, all very well.
but what else did i do? why?

i listened to the elder statesmen
and curbed my youthful impetuousness.

i made up my mind to be wise and play carefully, conservatively.

everybody knew
that the way to do that
was to take profits
and buy back your stocks on reactions.

and that is precisely what i did,
or rather what i tried to do;

for i often took profits
and waited for a reaction that never came.

and i saw my stock go kiting up ten points more
and i sitting there with my four-point profit
safe in my conservative pocket.

they say you never grow poor
taking profits.
no, you don't.
but neither do you grow rich
taking a four-point profit
in a bull market."

--


Reminiscences of a Stock Operator
by Edwin Lefèvre