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Gems of Jesse Livermore

  
  Education
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Jesse Livermore

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. 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 man can always have adequate reasons for buying or selling stocks daily — or sufficient knowledge to make his play an intelligent play.

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

It takes a man a long time to learn all the lessons of all his mistakes. 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.

Nobody offered to point out the essential differences or set me right. If somebody had told me my method would not work I nevertheless would have tried it out to make sure for myself, for when I am wrong only one thing convinces me of it, and that is, to lose money. And I am only right when I make money. That is speculating.

26 Quotes for Trading & Life

  
  Education
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1. Don’t try making sense out of it. You’re in an insane asylum – things are not going to make sense, people will do things that don’t make sense, that they cannot adequately explain. People don’t know what makes them tick, only that they tick.

2. Happiness, of course…is all in your head. If you don’t know that, if you haven’t come to that realization, you will never be happy.

3. The Bull Market Syndrome. People, when they are met with success, take personal credit for it (bull markets breed geniuses), and when they are met with failure, blame luck.

4. Actually, luck is responsible for both! If you can only die by being struck by lightning, eventually, you will die by being struck by lightning! Conversely, if a man were to live forever, and bought a lottery ticket every week, eventually, he will win the lottery, with a probability that approaches certainty. Just stay the course, keep doing today what you must do today. As Woody Allen says, “Fifty percent of success is just showing up.”

Luck Trumps Brains. To get luck, keep showing up each day with your shoes on.

5. Creativity trumps money every time.

6. Fortunately in life, you don’t have to succeed at everything you do, only a few things. One success often justifies all prior attempts.

7. You can buy great a education – you can not buy brains.

8. The Oswald Principle: Usually, the best course of action in life, is to take no action (and usually, the best thing to say is nothing!). The guys in jail or there not because they didn’t do anything. Usually, you should just sleep in! If nothing really bad happens today, as my friend Oswald said to me in eighth grade, it’s been a good day!

9. You don’t have the problems you think you do. Actually, the only real problems are health and criminal problems. Everything else is just a frivolous, meaningless nuisance.

10. Never say never. Everyone, however righteous they may claim to be, however upstanding they say they are, will, under the right circumstances commit the crime. A cold morning, wet, hungry, tired, angry….they’ll do things they never dreamed they would! (more…)

Market Beating lessons

  
  Education
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BULL-FIGHTOn the school of hard knocks:

The game taught me the game. And it didn’t spare me rod while teaching. It took me five years to learn to play the game intelligently enough to make big money when I was right.

On losing trades:

Losing money is the least of my troubles. A loss never troubles me after I take it. I forget it overnight. But being wrong – not taking the loss – that is what does the damage to the pocket book and to the soul.

On trading the trends:

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 the game is to buy and hold until you believe the bull market is near its end.

On sticking to his plan:

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 favoured my play. There is the plain fool, who does the wrong thing at all times everywhere, but there is also the Wall Street fool, who thinks he must trade all the time. No man can have adequate reasons for buying or selling stocks daily – or sufficient knowledge to make his play an intelligent play. (more…)

On Trading Psychology

  
  Education
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From “Reminiscences of a Stock Operator” by Edwin Lefevre, the 1923 classic pseudo-autobiography of legendary trader Jesse Livermore:

… I didn’t always win. My plan of trading was sound enough and won oftener than it lost. If I had stuck to it I’d have been right perhaps as often as seven out of ten times. In fact, I always made money when I was sure I was right before I began. 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. 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 man can always have adequate reasons for buying or selling stocks daily — or sufficient knowledge to make his play an intelligent play.

Sometimes the best play is to not play at all. When playing the market, you have to let the opportunities come to you, and take advantage of them when the odds are in your favor. If you don’t, you’ll get very frustrated — and you’ll lose money.

Nuggets of Wisdom from REMINISCENCES OF A STOCK OPERATOR.

  
  Education
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reminiscencesofstockoperator-1
Just Today evening again completed reading this book and this was I think 10th time I had read this book.Iam telling you this is a Bible for Day Traders.
Here are some of the Quotes/Nuggets from this Book.Just spare some time and read them ……
Of course there is always a reason for fluctuations, but the tape does not concern itself with the why and wherefore.
My plan of trading was sound enough and won oftener than it lost. If I had stuck to it I’d have been right perhaps as often as seven out of ten times.
What beat me was not having brains enough to stick to my own game.
But there is the Wall Street fool, who thinks he must trade all the time. No man can always have adequate reasons for buying or selling stocks daily or sufficient knowledge to make his. play an intelligent play.
The desire for constant action irrespective of underlying conditions is responsible for many losses in 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.
It takes a man a long time to learn all the lessons of all his mistakes. (more…)

FEAR

  
  Education
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There is nothing to fear except fear itself…’so said FDR when talking about America’s policies for exiting the great depression. Of all the known negative emotions that affect trading, I would argue that Fear is the most pervasive, and potentially the most destructicve. 

Even that other emotion we are always warned about – Greed can be alternatively described as ‘the fear of missing out’ and so it’s very essence is derived from fear. Frustration too is essentially born from fear as is Boredom, these being two other potentially harmful emotions that can afflict traders.

Fear in trading comes from the fear of a losing trade/losing run and the loss of money/not being right. This fear of losing stems from operating in an environment of uncertainty where the result is not known in advance. This uncertainty though does not have to result in fear per say.

The human brain is not naturally wired for trading in it’s evolutionary development. It takes years of practice and development for someone to re-train their brain to accept uncertainty and manage it. This is the necessary acquiring of the psychological skills required to trade successfully. Essentially when it is more natural to hope we fear and when it is more natural to fear – we hope….in trading we have to do the opposite. Add to this the technical skill requirement of having to be right at the right time as being right at the wrong time is still a losing trade, and it is not hard to see that a process has to be undertaken to train our brains from a fear based outlook of uncertainty to a risk management outlook toward it. (more…)

On Trading Psychology

  
  Education
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From “Reminiscences of a Stock Operator” by Edwin Lefevre, the 1923 classic pseudo-autobiography of legendary trader Jesse Livermore:

… I didn’t always win. My plan of trading was sound enough and won oftener than it lost. If I had stuck to it I’d have been right perhaps as often as seven out of ten times. In fact, I always made money when I was sure I was right before I began. 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. 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 man can always have adequate reasons for buying or selling stocks daily — or sufficient knowledge to make his play an intelligent play.

Sometimes the best play is to not play at all. When playing the market, you have to let the opportunities come to you, and take advantage of them when the odds are in your favor. If you don’t, you’ll get very frustrated — and you’ll lose money.

Brain test Learn to trade self assesment

  
  Education
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giraffe_in_refrigeratorThe Giraffe Test

1. How do you put a giraffe into a refrigerator?

Stop and think about it and decide on your answer before you scroll down.

The correct answer is: Open the refrigerator, put in the giraffe, and close the door. This question tests whether you tend to do simple things in an overly complicated way.

2. How do you put an elephant into a refrigerator?

Did you say, Open the refrigerator, put in the elephant, and close the refrigerator?

Wrong Answer.

Correct Answer: Open the refrigerator, take out the giraffe, put in the elephant and close the door. This tests your ability to think through the repercussions of your previous actions.

3. The Lion King is hosting an animal conference. All the animals
attend …. Except one. Which animal does not attend?

Correct Answer : The Elephant. The elephant is in the refrigerator. Didn’t you just put him in there? This tests your memory. Okay, even if you did not answer the first three questions correctly, you still have one more chance to show your true abilities. (more…)

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