Reminiscences of a Stock Operator

Livermore - the best speculator ever. This book helps me most in my adventure of trading.

CHAPTER I

There is nothing new in Wall Street. There can't be because speculation is as old as the hills. Whatever happens in the stock market to-day has happened before and will happen again.

The tape does not concern itself with the why and wherefore. It doesn't go into explanations. I didn't ask the tape why when I was fourteen, and I don't ask to-day, at forty. 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 to-morrow. The reason can wait.

CHAPTER II

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 favored my play.

The desire for constant action irrespective of underlying conditions is responsible for many losses in Wall Street.

A stock operator has to fight a lot of expensive enimies within himself.

CHAPTER III

But there is only one side to the stock market; and it is not the bull side or the bear side, but the right side.

I have been flat broke several times, but my loss has never been a total loss. Otherwise, I wouldn't be here now. I always knew I would have another chance and that I would not make the same mistake a second time. I believed in myself. A man must believe in himself and his judgment if he expects to make a living at this game.

Speculation is a hard and trying business, and a speculator must be on the job all the time or he'll soon have no job to be on.

It never was my thinking that made the big money for me. It always was my sitting. My sitting tight!

The market does not beat them. They beat themselves, because though they have brains they cannot sit tight.

One of the most helpful things that anybody can learn is to give up trying to catch the last eighth or the first. These two are the most expensive eighths in the world.



CHAPTER IV

When a man is right he wants to get all that is coming to him for being right.


CHAPTER V



Chapter 6


Chapter 7

Remember that stocks are never too high for you to begin buying or too low to begin selling. But after the initial transaction, don't make a second unless the first shows you a profit.

Chapter 8

If you begin right you will not see your profitable position seriously menaced; and then you will find no trouble in sitting tight.

CHAPTER IX

Timid people don't like to buy a stock at a new high record. But I had the history of such movements to guide me.

The way to make money is to make it. The way to make big money is to be right at exactly the right time.

The news simply meant that the bull cliques were still fighting desperately against conditions - against common sense and against common honesty, for they knew what was coming and were resorting to such schemes to put up the market in order to unload stocks before the storm struck them.



CHAPTER X



CHAPTER XI


CHAPTER XII

When I make money I make it backing my own opinions.

A man cannot be convinced against his own convictions, but he can be talked into a state of uncertainty and indecision, which is even worse, for that means that he cannot trade with confidence and comfort.

Of all speculative blunders there are few greater than trying to average a losing game.

Always sell what shows you a loss and keep what shows you a profit.

There isn't a man in Wall Street who has not lost money trying to make the market pay for an automobile or a bracelet or a motor boat or a painting.

What does a man do when he sets out to make the stock market pay for a sudden need? Why, he merely hopes. He gambles. He therefore runs much greater risks than he would if he were speculating intelligently, in accordance with opinions or beliefs logically arrived at after a dispassionate study of underlying conditions. To begin with, he is after an immediate profit. He cannot afford to wait.

CHAPTER XIII