| Reminiscences of a Stock Operator | |
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Paperback 2006 |
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| Author(s) | Edwin Lefèvre |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Finance |
| Publisher | John Wiley & Sons |
| Publication date | 1923 |
| Pages | 288 |
| ISBN | 978-0471770886 |
Reminiscences of a Stock Operator is a 1923 novel by American author Edwin Lefèvre which is the thinly disguised biography of Jesse Lauriston Livermore. The Wall Street Journal described the book as a "classic", it was ranked #15 on 'Fortune's 75 The Smartest Books We Know', and Alan Greenspan said it is "a font of investing wisdom."
Contents |
First published in 1923, Reminiscences is a fictionalized account of the life of the securities trader Jesse Livermore. Despite the book's age, it continues to offer insights into the art of trading and speculation. In Jack Schwagers Market Wizards, Reminiscences was quoted as a major source of stock trading learning material for experienced and new traders by many of the traders who Schwager interviewed.
The book tells the story of Livermore's progression from day trading in the then so-called "New England bucket shops," to market speculator, market maker, and market manipulator, and finally to Wall Street where he made and lost his fortune several times over. Along the way, Livermore learns many lessons, which he happily shares with the reader.
The book remains in print as of 2008, (ISBN 0471770884). In December 2009, John Wiley & Sons published an Annotated Edition in hardcover, ISBN 0470481595, that bridges the gap between Lefèvre's fictionalized account and the actual exploits, personalities, and locations that populate the book. Page margins in the 2009 edition explain the historical setting and the real companies, individuals, and news events to which Lefèvre alludes.
| “ | 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. | ” |
| “ | Old man Partridge's insistence on the vital importance of being continuously bullish in a bull market doubtless made my mind dwell on the need above all other things of determining the kind of market a man is trading in. I began to realize that the big money must necessarily be in the big swing. Whatever might seem to give a big swing, initial impulse, the fact is that its continuance is not the result of manipulation by pools or artifice by financiers, but depends upon basic conditions. And no matter who opposes it, the swing must inevitably run as far and as fast and as long as the impelling forces determine. | ” |
| “ | To learn that a man can make foolish plays for no reason whatever was a valuable lesson. It cost me millions to learn that another dangerous enemy to a trader is his susceptibility to the urgings of a magnetic personality when plausibly expressed by a brilliant mind. It has always seemed to me, however, that I might have learned my lesson quite as well if the cost had been only one million. But Fate does not always let you fix the tuition fee. She delivers the educational wallop and presents her own bill, knowing you have to pay it, no matter what the amount may be. Having learned what folly I was capable of, I closed that particular incident. | ” |