Best Jesse Livermore Quotes & Sayings

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

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

The market always does what it should do, but not always when — Jesse Lauriston Livermore

I have always played a lone hand. It is the way my mind works. I have to do my own seeing and my own thinking. But I can tell you that after the market began to go my way I felt for the first time in my life that I had allies - the strongest and truest in the world: underlying conditions. They were helping me with all their might. — Jesse Lauriston Livermore

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

If a man is both wise and lucky, he will not make the same mistake twice. But he will make any one of ten thousand brothers or cousins of the original. — Jesse Lauriston Livermore

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

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

I cannot fear to be wrong because I never think I'm wrong until I am proven wrong. In fact, I am uncomfortable unless I am capitalizing my experience. — Jesse Lauriston Livermore

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

The stock market is never obvious. It is designed to fool most of the people, most of the time. — Jesse Lauriston Livermore

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

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

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

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

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

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

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. — Jesse Lauriston Livermore

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

Disregarding the big swing and trying to jump in and out was fatal to me. Nobody can catch all the fluctuations. In a bull market your game is to buy and hold until you believe that the bull market is near its end. To do this you must study general conditions and not tips or special factors affecting individual stocks. — Jesse Lauriston Livermore

Never buy at the bottom, and always sell too soon. — Jesse Lauriston Livermore

Never try to sell at the top. It isn't wise. Sell after a reaction if there is no rally. — Jesse Lauriston Livermore

There is only one side of the market and it is not the bull side or the bear side, but the right side. — Jesse Livermore

Without faith in his own judgment no man can go very far in this game. That is about all I have learned - to study general conditions, to take a position and stick to it. I can wait without a twinge of impatience. I can see a setback without being shaken, knowing that it is only temporary. — Jesse Lauriston Livermore

In the early days of the crash it was widely believed that Jesse L. Livermore, a Bostonian with a large and unquestionably exaggerated reputation for bear operations, leading a syndicate that was driving the market down. — John Kenneth Galbraith

Money is made by sitting, not trading. — Jesse Lauriston Livermore

A market does not culminate in one grand blaze of glory. Neither does it end with a sudden reversal of form. A market can and does often cease to be a bull market long before prices generally begin to break. — Jesse Lauriston Livermore

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

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. — Jesse Lauriston Livermore

"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