Trade Like an O'Neil Disciple: How We Made 18,000% in the Stock Market

3.10. THE THEME OF SUCCESS

In the process of making over 1,000 percent in 1999, some clear themes are evident. The first theme that I believe is most important for investors to understand is the idea that it was not necessarily my thinking that made me so much money. It was, rather frankly, the size of the wave I was riding, and the dot-com bubble bull market of October 1999 to March 2000 was a wave of epic proportion. Just before this massive upside wave appeared, you can see that neither I nor Bill O'Neil, nor perhaps anyone else in the market, had any inkling of what we were about to experience. But when the market turned, despite the fact that we were fairly discouraged and fed up with the market in mid-October 1999, we simply followed our rules and turned with it, buying stocks showing what we believed were driving characteristics that would attract institutional buyers. I didn't make 1,009 percent (that was the exact number) because I was some sort of genius. I simply saw a wave coming and got on with absolutely no idea how long or how big the ride would be. Some simple rules, such as holding a stock for a minimum of eight weeks if it moves up 20 percent within three weeks or less of initially breaking out, provided a simple "collar" that forced me to hold my positions. In a sense, the rule was proven to be quite valid.

Like a surfer who simply jumps on the wave and lets it run its course until it closes out and forces him or her to exit, you simply exercise all your basic ...