Jesse Lauriston Livermore famous quotes

The game of speculation is the most uniformly fascinating game in the world. But it is not a game for the stupid, the mentally lazy, the person of inferior emotional balance, or the get-rich-quick adventurer. They will die poor.
-- Jesse Lauriston Livermore

#Business #Stupid #Emotional

There is only one side to the stock market; and it is not the bull side or the bear side, but the right side
-- Jesse Lauriston Livermore

#Investing #Bulls #Sides

A man must study general conditions, to seize them so as to be able to anticipate probabilities.
-- Jesse Lauriston Livermore

#Men #Investing #Able

Just remember, without discipline, a clear strategy, and a concise plan, the speculator will fall into all the emotional pitfalls of the market - jump from one stock to another, hold a losing position too long, and cut out of a winner too soon, for no reason other than fear of losing profit. Greed, Fear, Impatience, Ignorance, and Hope will all fight for mental dominance over the speculator. Then, after a few failures and catastrophes the speculator may become demoralised, depressed, despondent, and abandon the market and the chance to make a fortune from what the market has to offer.
-- Jesse Lauriston Livermore

#Fall #Ignorance #Fighting

A prudent speculator never argues with the tape. Markets are never wrong, opinions often are.
-- Jesse Lauriston Livermore

#Tape #Investing #Prudent

When I'm bearish and I sell a stock, each sale must be at a lower level than the previous sale. When I am buying, the reverse is true. I must buy on a rising scale. I don't buy long stocks on a scale down, I buy on a scale up.
-- Jesse Lauriston Livermore

#Long #Rising #Levels

After spending many years in Wall Street and after making and losing millions of dollars I want to tell you this: It never was my thinking that made the big money for me. It always was my sitting. Got that? My sitting tight!
-- Jesse Lauriston Livermore

#Money #Wall #Thinking

Remember this: When you are doing nothing, those speculators who feel they must trade day in and day out, are laying the foundation for your next venture. You will reap benefits from their mistakes.
-- Jesse Lauriston Livermore

#Mistake #Benefits #Venture

"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?
-- Jesse Lauriston Livermore

#Holiday #Investing #Selling

A man must believe in himself and his judgement if he expects to make a living at this game. That is why I don't believe in tips."
-- Jesse Lauriston Livermore

#Believe #Men #Games

A loss never bothers me after I take it. I forget it overnight. But being wrong - not taking the loss - that is what does damage to the pocketbook and to the soul.
-- Jesse Lauriston Livermore

#Cutting #Loss #Soul

I did precisely the wrong thing. The cotton showed me a loss and I kept it. The wheat showed me a profit and I sold it out. Of all the 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.
-- Jesse Lauriston Livermore

#Loss #Games #Average

If you can't sleep at night because of your stock market position, then you have gone too far. If this is the case, then sell your position down to the sleeping level.
-- Jesse Lauriston Livermore

#Sleep #Night #Gone

Professional traders have always had some system or other based upon their experience and governed either by their attitude towards speculation or by their desires.
-- Jesse Lauriston Livermore

#Attitude #Desire #Investing

Don't take action with a trade until the market, itself, confirms your opinion. Being a little late in a trade is insurance that your opinion is correct. In other words, don't be an impatient trader.
-- Jesse Lauriston Livermore

#Investing #Littles #Action

The desire for constant action irrespective of underlying conditions is responsible for many losses on Wall Street even among the professionals, who feel that they must take home some money every day, as though they were working for regular wages.
-- Jesse Lauriston Livermore

#Wall #Home #Loss

Wall Street never changes, the pockets change, the suckers change, the stocks change, but Wall Street never changes, because human nature never changes.
-- Jesse Lauriston Livermore

#Money #Wall #Greed

Experience has proved to me that real money made in speculating has been in commitments in a stock or commodity showing a profit right from the start.
-- Jesse Lauriston Livermore

#Real #Commitment #Investing

It is literally true that millions come easier to a trader after he knows how to trade, than hundreds did in the days of his ignorance.
-- Jesse Lauriston Livermore

#Ignorance #Investing #Easier

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

#Brain #Doe #Investing

Instead of hoping he must fear and instead of fearing he must hope. He must fear that his loss may develop into a much bigger loss, and hope that his profit may become a big profit.
-- Jesse Lauriston Livermore

#Loss #May #Investing

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.
-- Jesse Lauriston Livermore

#Men #Thinking #Average

"I can't sleep" answered the nervous one. "Why not?" asked the friend. "I am carrying so much cotton that I can't sleep thinking about. It is wearing me out. What can I do?" "Sell down to the sleeping point", answered the friend.
-- Jesse Lauriston Livermore

#Sleep #Thinking #Why Not

He will risk half his fortune in the stock market with less reflection that he devotes to the selection of a medium-priced automobile.
-- Jesse Lauriston Livermore

#Reflection #Risk #Half

I don't know whether I make myself plain, but I never lose my temper over the stock market. I never argue with the tape. Getting sore at the market doesn't get you anywhere.
-- Jesse Lauriston Livermore

#Tape #Investing #Arguing

In a narrow market, when prices are not getting anywhere to speak of but move within a narrow range, there is no sense in trying to anticipate what the next big movement is going to be. The thing to do is to watch the market, read the tape to determine the limits of the get nowhere prices, and make up your mind that you will not take an interest until the prices breaks through the limit in either direction.
-- Jesse Lauriston Livermore

#Moving #Mind #Trying

I never hesitate to tell a man that I am bullish or bearish. But I do not tell people to buy or sell any particular stock. In a bear market all stocks go down and in a bull market they go up.
-- Jesse Lauriston Livermore

#Men #People #Bears

"On Pat Hearne - He made money in stocks, and that made people ask him for advice. He would never give any. If they asked him point-blank for his opinion about the wisdom of their commitments he used a favorite race-track maxim of his: "You can't tell till you bet.""
-- Jesse Lauriston Livermore

#Commitment #Race #Giving

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. They have cost stock traders, in the aggregate, enough millions of dollars to build a concrete highway across the continent.
-- Jesse Lauriston Livermore

#Giving Up #Two #Trying

There is time to go long, time to go short and time to go fishing.
-- Jesse Lauriston Livermore

#Business #Fishing #Long

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

#Giving #Financial #Judgment

The price pattern reminds you that every movement of importance is but a repetition of similar price movements, that just as soon as you can familiarize yourself with the actions of the past, you will be able to anticipate and act correctly and profitably upon forthcoming movements.
-- Jesse Lauriston Livermore

#Past #Investing #Movement

It isn't as important to buy as cheap as possible as it is to buy at the right time.
-- Jesse Lauriston Livermore

#Important #Right Time

It never was my thinking that made the big money for me. It always was my sitting.
-- Jesse Lauriston Livermore

#Thinking #Sitting #Investment

At long as a stock is acting right, and the market is right, do not be in a hurry to take profits. One should never permit speculative ventures to run into investments.
-- Jesse Lauriston Livermore

#Running #Long #Acting

He really meant to tell them that the big money was not in the individual fluctuations but in the main movements that is, not in reading the tape but in sizing up the entire market and its trend.
-- Jesse Lauriston Livermore

#Reading #Movement #Trends

It is what people actually did in the stock market that counted - not what they said they were going to do.
-- Jesse Lauriston Livermore

#People #Investing #Said

People who look for easy money invariable pay for the privilege of proving conclusively that it cannot be found on this earth.
-- Jesse Lauriston Livermore

#People #Earth #Pay

It is foolhardy to make a second trade, if your first trade shows you a loss. Never average losses. Let this thought be written indelibly upon your mind.
-- Jesse Lauriston Livermore

#Loss #Average #Mind

Men who can both be right and sit tight are uncommon. I found it one of the hardest things to learn. But it is only after a stock operator has firmly grasped this that he can make big money.
-- Jesse Lauriston Livermore

#Men #Investing #Bigs