Patience Is Key

I’m not sure if anyone reading this has ever watched this 1998 movie called “The Conman”, starring Andy Lau.

Andy Lau (known as “King” in the movie) plays an ex-convict who was once an expert gambler, and Nick Cheung (known as “Dragon”) is a wannabe gambler who wants to learn the tricks of the trade from King.

My favourite scene from the movie is timestamped above.

The horse race is about to begin, and Dragon thinks that his mentor King has all his bets ready and is about to call the betting house to place all his bets.

However, King actually calls a noodle restaurant instead to order food to be delivered to their apartment.

Dragon is perplexed and asks King: “We wasted so much time analyzing the bets. Why didn’t you even bet a penny?”

To which King replied: “I saw no safe bets. Why would I bet? The horse trainers only bet less than ten races a season. If you bet on every race, even Bill Gates will go broke.”

Dragon then said: “This is boring!”

To which King said: “Do you want to be a happy loser or a boring winner?”

I think this is a great lesson for day trading the stock market as well.

1. Good trades don’t come all that often.
2. You have to be very patient and not jump into bad trades.
3. Nobody said day trading isn’t boring. A large part of it involves waiting for the right trade to come.

Patience is key.