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Quotes

“Profits always take care of themselves but losses never do.”

“The average man doesn’t wish to be told that it is a bull or a bear market. What he desires is to be told specifically which particular stock to buy or sell. He wants to get something for nothing. He does not wish to work. He doesn’t even wish to have to think.”

“When it comes to selling stocks, it is plain that nobody can sell unless somebody wants those stocks. If you operate on a large scale, you will have to bear that in mind all the time.”

REMIMSCENCES OF A STOCK OPERATOR
“Fiction writers, clergymen and women are fond of alluding to the floor of the Stock Exchange as a boodlers’ battlefield and to Wall Street’s dally business as a fight. It is quite dramatic but utterly misleading. I do not think that my business is strife and contest. I never fight either individuals or speculative cliques. I merely differ in opinion – that is, in my reading of basic conditions. What playwrights call battles of business are not fights between human beings. They are merely tests of business vision. I try to stick to facts and facts only, and govern my actions accordingly.”

– Jesse Lauriston Livermore

REMIMSCENCES OF A STOCK OPERATOR

“The loss of money didn’t bother me. Whenever I have lost money in the stock market I have always considered that I have learned something; that if I have lost money I have gained experience, so that the money really went for a tuition fee. A man has to have experience and he has to pay for it.”

– Jesse Lauriston Livermore

REMIMSCENCES OF A STOCK OPERATOR

“A man must believe in himself and his judgment if he expects to make a living at this game. That is why I don’t believe in tips. If I buy stocks on Smith’s tip I must sell those same stocks on Smith’s tip. I am depending on him. Suppose Smith is away on a holiday when the selling time comes around? No, sir, nobody can make big money on what someone else tells his to do. I know from experience that nobody can give me a tip or a series of tips that will make more money for me than my own judgment.”

– Jesse Lauriston Livermore

“In fact, I always made money when I was sure I was right before I began. What beat me was not having brains enough to stick to my own game – that is to play the market only when I was satisfied that precedents favoured my play. There is a time for all things, but I didn’t know it. And that is precisely what beats so many men in Wall Street who are very far from being in the main sucker class. There is that plain fool, who does the wrong thing all the times everywhere, but there is the Wall Street fool, who thinks he must trade all the time. No man can always have adequate reasons for buying or selling stocks daily – or sufficient knowledge to make his play an intelligent play.”

– Jesse Lauriston Livermore

REMINISCENCES OF A STOCK OPERATOR

“Throughout all my years of investing I’ve found that the big money was never made in the buying or the selling. The big money was always made in the waiting.”

– Jesse Livermore

“There are only two emotions in the market — hope and fear. The problem is, you hope when you should fear, and you fear when you should hope.”

– Jesse Livemore

Livermore’s probing strategy consisted of taking small positions at the beginning of a trade. If a trade turned out to be successful he would add more shares and continue buying (or shorting) as long as the action was proceeding in the way he thought it was to proceed, which was his pyramiding strategy. He always averaged up in price instead of averaging down, which in his day and for most today is the more popular way, but it is not the most profitable way.

– Lessons From The Greatest Stock Traders
By JOHN BOIK

Pyramiding was buying more of a stock as it kept advancing in price. Imagine how different this strategy must have seemed in those early years, as most people are taught to purchase things at lower prices in order to get a bargain, as opposed to paying higher prices. This concept of adding to your most recent purchases when they prove you were right compounds your returns . Livermore discovered that after he would purchase a stock from observing its price action, if the stock kept increasing in price, the action of the stock was proving to him that he had made the right decision. This confirmation of his correct decision was proof enough for him to continue purchasing more of the stock. This compounding effect would only add more to his increasing gains on those particular stocks.

– Lessons From The Greatest Stock Traders
By JOHN BOIK