“Although the cheetah is the fastest animal in the world and can catch any animal on the plains, it will wait until it is absolutely sure it can catch its prey. It may hide in the bush for a week, waiting for just the right moment.

It will wait for a baby antelope, and not just any baby antelope, but preferably one that is also sick or lame; only then, when there is no chance it can lose its prey, does it attack.

That, to me, is the epitome of professional trading.

When I trade at home, I often watch the sparrows in my garden.

When I feed them bread, they take just a little piece at a time and fly away. They keep on flying back and forth, taking small bits of bread. They may have to make a hundred stabs at a piece of bread to get what a pigeon gets at one time, but that is why a pigeon is a pigeon.

You will never be able to shoot a sparrow, it is just too fast.

That is the way I day trade.

For example, there are times during the day when I am sure that the S&P is going up, but I don’t try to pick the bottom, and I am out before it tops. I just take the mid-range where the momentum is greatest.

That, to me, is trading like a sparrow eats.

– Mark Weinstein in Schwager, Jack D.. Market Wizards, Updated: Interviews With Top Traders (p. 329). Wiley.