9.5. CONCLUSION

If you ever have the opportunity to work side-by-side with Bill O'Neil, experiencing and operating in the market in real time, you might begin to understand that being one of the greatest stock market investors in history isn't about being right all the time. In fact, O'Neil was often wrong, but he never had his ego staked in being right to begin with. He constantly reminded us that "You miss 100 percent of the shots you don't take." O'Neil took a lot of shots, but he also used the market as a massive information feedback system, moving with the evidence as it changed, not before, and not after. In this manner he was constantly trying to figure out where he was wrong, so that he might take immediate corrective action. O'Neil often preaches that in the stock market there are two kinds of investors: the quick and the dead. O'Neil was quick to discern when he was wrong, and to shift course before it caused him too much damage. He could also pick up the scent of blood very quickly, and when he picked up the scent, knowing he was onto something big, he knew how to squeeze every last drop of profit out of a big, winning stock. Nobody is better at this than Bill O'Neil.

You can read all about Bill O'Neil in books like Jack Schwager's Market Wizards, and you can read all the books he has written himself, but you can never truly understand his sheer market genius until you see him in action. Working with him in real time, you also begin to understand that what he does is not magic. It is the result of discipline, hard work, detailed observation, tireless study, and decisive action; in this way, it is accessible to all of us as traders. This chapter has hopefully brought into focus how someone with such immense experience as an investor engages the market with his own methods in a manner that is simultaneously fluid and decisive.