Jesse Livermore Quotes Page 4

“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.”

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

“Stocks are never too high to buy or too low to sell.”

“Successful trading is always an emotional battle for the speculator, not an intelligent battle.”

“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.”

“The desire for constant action irrespective of underlying conditions is responsible for many losses in Wall Street among the professionals who feel that they must take home some money every day, as though they were working for a regular wage.”

“The finest art is not to lose money. Making money in the stock market can be done by anybody.”

“The game taught me the game. And it didn’t spare the rod while teaching.”

“The highest profits are made in trades that show a profit right from the start.”

“The human side of every person is the greatest enemy of the average investor or speculator.”

“The leaders of today may not be the leaders of two years from now.”

“The market always does what it should do, but not always when.”

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

“The money lost by speculation alone is small compared with the gigantic sums lost by so-called investors who have let their investments ride.”

“The only thing to do when a man is wrong is to be right by ceasing to be wrong.”

“The speculator has to insure himself against considerable losses by taking the first small loss. In so doing, he keeps his account in order so that at some future time, when he has a constructive idea, he will be in a position to go into another deal, taking on the same amount of stock as he had when he was wrong.”

“The stock market is never obvious. It is designed to fool most of the people, most of the time.”

“The worse a situation becomes, the less it takes to turn it around, the bigger upside.”

“There are times when you should be completely out of the market, for emotional as well as economic reasons.”

“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 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 many can always have adequate reasons for buying and selling stocks daily – or sufficient knowledge to make his play an intelligent play. ”

“There is nothing like losing all you have in the world for teaching you what not to do. And when you know what not to do in order not to lose money, you begin to learn what to do in order to win.”

“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 today has happened before and will happen again.”

“There is nothing new on Wall Street or in stock speculation. What has happened in the past will happen again, and again, and again. This is because human nature does not change, and it is human emotion, solidly build into human nature, that always gets in the way of human intelligence. Of this I am sure.”

“There is time to go long, time to go short and time to go fishing.”

“They say there are two sides to everything. 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. It took me longer to get that general principle fixed firmly in my mind than it did most of the more technical phases of the game of stock speculation.”

“They say you never grow poor taking profits. No, you don't. But neither do you grow rich taking a four-point profit in a bull market. Where I should have made twenty thousand dollars I made two thousand. That was what conservatism did for me.”

“To anticipate the market is to gamble. To be patient and react only when the market gives the signal is to speculate.”

“Trade in the direction of the general market. If it’s rising you should be long, if it’s falling you should be short.”

“Trade only when the market is clearly bullish or bearish.”

“Trends come like a series of ocean waves, bringing the high tide when things are good and, as conditions recede, the low tide appears. These trends come unexpectedly, unpredictably, and they have to be weathered with temperance, poise, and patience- good or bad.”