Reminiscences of a Stock Operator

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Author: Edwin Lefevre

Publisher: Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc.

Year Printed: 1928

Edition: First

Printing: Third

Condition: Good

Pages: 299

Height: 7.75 inches

Width: 5.5 inches

Notes:

Link to article on Livermore and Cutten published by IFA

Link to article: "Wisdom of a Stock Operator" published by IFA

Third print. Green cloth cover with gold letters.

A fictionalized account of the life of the securities trader Jesse Livermore. The book offers insights into the art of trading and speculation.

Quotes:

"There is a time for all things, but I didn't know it. And that is precisely what beats so many men on Wall Street who are very far from being in the main sucker class. There is the plain fool, who does the wrong thing at all 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 and selling stocks daily - or sufficient knowledge to make his play an intelligent play." pg. 21

"It never was my thinking that made the big money for me. It always was my sitting. Got that? My sitting tight! It is no trick at all to be right on the market. You always find lots of early bulls in bull markets and early bears in bear markets. I've known many men who were right at exactly the right time, and began buying or selling stocks when prices were at the very level which should show the greatest profit. And their experience invariably matched mine--that is, they made no real money out of it. Men who can both be right and sit tight are uncommon." pg. 68

"I made the remark that nobody could beat the game on acount of the rotten execution he got from his broker, especially when he traded at the market, as I did."...."It isn't that they are crooked or careless, but when a man gives an order to buy at the market he never knows what that stock is going to cost him until he gets a report from the brokers." pg. 46 - 47.

"Since suckers always lose money when they gamble in stocks-they never really speculate-you'd think these fellows would run what you might call a legitimate illegitimate business." pg. 53.

"Of course there is always a reason for fluctuations, but what the tape does not concern itself with the why and wherefore. It doesn't go into explanations. The reason for what a certain stock does today may not be known for two or three days, or weeks, or months. But what the dickens does that matter? Your business with the tape is now - not tomorrow. The reason can wait. But you must act instantly or be left." pg. 11

"It seems so obvious now that tape reading is not enough, irrespective of broker execution, that I wonder why I didn't then see both my trouble and the remedy for it." pg. 42

"The game of speculation isn't all mathematics or set rules, however rigid the main laws may be." pg. 60

"A man may beat a stock or a group at a certain time, but no man living can beat the stock market!". pg. 131

"I have said many times and cannot say it too often that the experience of years as a stock operator has convinced me that that no man can consistently and continuously beat the stock market though he may make money in individual stocks on certain occasions." pg. 299

"No matter how experienced a trader is the possibility of his making losing plays is always present because speculation cannot be made 100 percent safe." pg. 299

"I have been in the speculative game ever since I was fourteen. It is all I have ever done. I think I know what I am talking about. And the conclusion that I have reached after nearly thirty years of constant trading, both on a shoestring and with millions of dollars back of me, is this: A man may beat a stock or a group at a certain time, but no man living can beat the stock market! A man may make money out of individual deals in cotton or grain, but no man can beat the cotton market or the grain market. It’s like the track. A man may beat a horse race but he cannot beat horse racing. If I knew how to make these statements stronger or more emphatic I certainly would. It does not make any difference what anybody says to the contrary. I know I am right in saying these are incontrovertible statements." Page 131.

Images:

Step 1: Active Investors, Step 3: Stock Pickers, Step 11: Risk Exposure, Wall Street, Speculation, Stock Market, Arthur Cutten

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