over 85 years old and still going strong, read it and find out why

Never before had I so much fun reading and learning about the psychology of buying and shorting stocks. This is an extraordinarily written piece of work that eases into explanations of the power of the subconscious as well as the power of emotions on the conscious decisions made during those uncertain moments of trading. Great book!

This vintage tomb from a bygone era ... is simply one of the best financial texts you could ever hope to lay your hands on. One of the strongest realizations that emerge from the author's engaging style of writing, is that the lessons learned a century ago, are as relevant and useful today as they were back then. The examples and analysis peppered throughout this book, are some of the most insightful examples available to the average reader. There are no mathematical formulas or detailed charts (one of this book's strong points) yet there is plenty of meat on the bone here, for anyone that is searching for clear and practical advice on successfully navigating the rough waters of the financial markets. Many lessons learned and dissected in clear detail. Highly recommended reading.

This book really brings to life an era of finance that is long gone. And the lessons of the book are still very relevant today. It is part biography and part tutorial for aspiring traders. Everyone should be required to read this book before being allowed to play the markets. If even half of the people on Wall Street had read this, the USA would be in much better shape today financially. It is a very engaging and entertaining read.

A Wall Street Classic and it does not disappoint. Published in 1923 the book continues to be one of the most heavily references books on trading and speculation. You'll learn about the early days and the history of the markets, some basic trading strategies, and most importantly: the human psychology of ups and downs of trading and how Larry Livingston (pseudonym for Jesse Livermore) dealt with it all.

I'm not a trader, nor am I aspiring to become one, but this was a fascinating read and I'll recommend it to everyone without hesitation.

This is a powerful lesson on the importance of risk management. Learn from Livermore's mistakes. It is never okay to risk money you do need for the hopes of accumulating money you do not need. Always know your risk exposure at all times.

Edwin Lefevre tells the fascinating story of Jesse Livermore, a famous stock operator who time and again made and lost fortunes by speculating on the market. Its greatest value is on the insights and reasoning process behind each move and associated result. It provides good entertainment for stock investors and speculators. Highly recommended!

I have a background in finance and recently decided to get serious about trading. Most books you find will discuss technical analysis or trading psychology. All of that is good and well but this book allows you to get into the head of a successful trader and actually experience the psychology and analysis that most others talk about.

Though times have changed this book will offer insights into the markets and human fallacies that no textbook can.

Enjoy... I finished this book the second I picked it up in the bookstore.. I think you will too if you're interested in trading.

It clearly shows what lies ahead if your interests are in trading long term. A fascinating story with tons of pointers.

A story based on the life of legendary trader Jesse Livermore who was famous for being short the market just before the 1927 crash and made over 100 Million dollars while 99% of all investors lost their life savings. A truly fascinating story and after reading it, I was a believer that timing the market and individual stock moves can be done with great success. My journey into the world of TA began after reading this book.

David Colletti
Founder
StockTradersHQ.com

What eminates throughout this book is the following:

1. The stock market is a complicated machine that takes a lot of understanding to truly understand.

2. Always consider the overall market conditions because human psychology plays a large role in how people move money in and out of the stock market.

3. The author focuses a lot on commodities so keep in mind that this is the most volotile beat within the stock market system.

4. The author's writing style can be a bit repetitive so be mindful of this while reading it.

5. You'll get an idea of just how much "insider" trading really goes on in the world.

Worth the read.

I have reviewed a few books and had some reservations about reviewing "Reminiscences of a Stock Operator" because there are hundreds of positive reviews out there already for this book. After all, this is the bible of stock trading. Only a complete amateur, or total beginner would trade in the stock market without reading this book first!

I will try to keep this review short. Basically, if you are going to trade, you need to understand how the market works and how the market is manipulated. Strong-hands (mutual funds, hedge funds, very large private investors, small countries, etc ) will always try to buy quietly during periods of low activity in a stock. When they have accumulated their line, they then start to show action in the stock and cause the price to rise. They run it as high as they can, getting the weak-hands (average investors, smaller investment groups, stupid hedge funds, etc) to buy this stock. Then the strong-hands start to unload (distribution) at a great profit. They then start shorting the market and profit from the stocks inevitable decline. Then they look for the next target stock and start all over again.

This book was written about 80 years ago and the game has remained the same. Because even though the names change, and the products offered change, the psychology of human emotions remains unchanged. Humans are ruled by fear and greed. As long as that is true, a select few who completely understand themselves and control their emotions will always take the money from the huge masses that let fear and greed control them.

I just finished reading this book for the third time in four years and I picked up many ideas from it. This book is a classic and as you learn and experience more in the markets, when you read it a second or third, or twentieth time you will pick up more and understand the markets more.

Some people say Jesse Livermore was a failure because he died broke and killed himself in a restaurant bathroom. Forget the way he died, learn from the way he lived. He started poor, worked hard, and made a fortune. Only to lose that fortune when he strayed from his trading rules. Then he made the money back, lost it again, and repeated that cycle a few times. This was a man that understood the market and understood human psychology. You can learn from his lessons and from his mistakes.

If you trade, or are thinking of trading or investing, READ THIS BOOK.

Another reason to read this book is to finally learn where most of the quotes used in the financial markets come from. 80 years old and we are still using the timeless wisdom of this book on a daily basis. I know I do, I trade price action and one of the reasons I understand it is because of this book.

Even though much of the book's stories take place quite a few decades ago, they are as relevant today as they were then. Very interesting to read the ups & downs of a "fellow trader".

Recommended.

This is a very good book for a beginner stock trader; it gives you an inside into the world of trading. Easy to follow and very enjoyable.

This was a very well written and interesting book. I would recommend it to anyone that wants to become a trader. I really enjoyed how he talked about the psychology of the markets and this was back in the late 1800's.

While many people revere this book for its trading insights into the mind of "the most successful" speculator that ever lived, it is important to remember that Jesse Livermore died broke, and went broke several times in his life!

In other words, there are some lessons that Jesse never learned and could never be included in the interviews contained in this "trading bible".

Jesse Livermore seemed to love using debt and leverage, and he never seemed to understand the fraud of paper money, which, of course, is a debt-based currency.

The real trading lessons are to be able to read between the lines, and to learn the lessons that Jesse Livermore never did.

Nevertheless, this book contains some of the best trading advice contained in one place that I've ever read. Jesse covers brokerage fruad, stock manipulation, trading spreads, the effect of size on one's positions, and many more invaluable lessons. The book is easy, fun, and exciting to read as Jesse recounts his own life history as a trader, starting out as a young man, determined to somehow make money by watching the tape, and trading on his gut feel for price movements.

As the stock market goes down down down, on page 163 the author explains why once again it was inevitable: "Over time, the size and complexity of the economy will outgrow the sophistication of static financial safety buffers."

It is amazing how long ago the core of this book was written yet the relevance of this material is spot on.

An excellent read getting into any type of trading (I trade currencies).

The morals become extremely potent once you have made and lost, and made (and lost) some money.

By far the best trading book I have ever read.

HE HAD RULES SUCH AS:

-Let your winners run and cut your losses quickly.
-History repeats itself.
-The trend is your friend.
-No stock is too high to buy or too low to sell.
Jesse Livermore high rolling life ended when he sadly committed suicide leaving $10,000 in his will (Source: Wheels of Fortune - The History of Speculation from Scandal to Respectability)! This provides evidence that he was a lucky gambler AT LEAST AT THE END.... after all someone was to win even in the lottery!

An enjoyable book. It certainly makes you realize that, except for a huge increase in scale, "the market" is very similar today to what it was 80 years ago. Good stories and insights make this a worthwhile way to spend some reading time.

Mark Twain once said:

"A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read."

This quote usually applies to most classics, with the exception of this book! If you are a trader and you haven't read Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, read it ASAP.

This book is a rare, classic jewel that few traders know about. It really should be REQUIRED reading before opening a brokerage account.
I compiled the nuggets of wisdom in this book and incorporated into my trading plan. It's amazing how this book can be an enlightening story AND a good textbook...
This book is SO relevant in today's volatile markets. I liked Investment Psychology Explained by Pring also. The two of them together gave me a solid undertanding of investor psychology that have improved my trading.
In fact , I keep a bullet list of the main points on my trading desk in plain view for reference.

Bar none, the best description of speculation in the financial markets ever written. A must read for anyone who buys stocks or trades.

As other reviewers have noted: this is probably THE classic book on stock market trading, despite its age. You will find insights into Larry Livingston's (aka Jesse Livermore's) trading rules and trading psychology, on top of which it's a cracking story.

This book has influenced my trading style more than any other book, and was one of the inspirations behind the writing of my own book on trading.

Tony Loton -- author, "DON'T LOSE MONEY! (in the Stock Markets)"

Not all the great investing books are available in audio format but as someone who has started from the basics, I found this helpful. The other two helpful books on CD from the Genre are Philip Fisher's common stocks, uncommon profits and Ben Graham's Security Analysis.
The book is a first person narrative and more a story than advice but it gives a good perspective on the psychology of the market and its operators which I found invaluable.

This is a fictional biography of Jesse Livermore, one of the greatest traders of all time. It is really charmingly written, infinitely better than you would expect for a book about markets.

What's useful in this book is the psychology you'll learn out of it. Know that most of the specifics are no longer applicable, because things like bucket shops and pools haven't been around for years. (The story ends about 80 years ago.) But his psychology is foundational to all good trading: playing the whole market, analyzing others' expectations, riding winners and cutting losers, etc. The narrative gets these points across in a skillful, almost epigrammatic way.

Know that the particulars are now non-existent, enjoy the story, and take the psychology to heart. Highly recommended.

Highly entertaining - refreshing in its honesty and with its vividness at which it depicts the mindset of a true trader.

80 years old, yet still stands the test of time. It's about legendary trader Jesse Livermore and lessons can be learned by doing the good things Livermore suggests and avoiding the bad ones.

Even though this book was written nearly 100 years ago, the lessons contained within still apply today. You won't find specific trading systems, or investing rules in the book. You will find, however, an inside account of market manipulation and the thought processes of a great trader.

I especially liked the exposure on the operations of "bucket shops" - the early 20th century counterpart of some modern retail Forex brokers.

While there's little technical information, a beginning investor may not 'get' much of the material here - a good knowledge of markets and trading is required to follow some of the anecdotes.

My title states it all. Read it. There's value in this book that you will realize as you spend more time analyzing the markets and market participants. It's an easy read that's designed like a story rather than finance textbook. Really good if you're into tape reading also. Are you a quant or programmer with no market experience? Read this and you'll learn a few things about why the markets don't always behave the way our models might predict.

Jessie Livermore's book is supposed to be about trading. But in reality, reading about the case of Mr. Partridge and that bucket shop, one realizes that this is about human nature. Greed, fear, we've all heard it before, but here we see it happen before our eyes. When those bucket shop exchange owners basically take on Livermore, its because their greed got the best of them and now are scared that this "Boy Plunger" figured them out. How many of you, who've traded in highly speculative issues, be it options on Google or even forex, kinda thought there was some sort of fix in?

To those not familiar with markets, this is basically the first book you should read. It won't teach you how to trade or make a fortune, but it will show you the human side of speculating. Veteran traders will see the various episodes in this book and relate it to their own experience. One simply can't go wrong with this book, easy to read, and I dare say fun. It doesn't matter if it's the early part of the last century, where Livermore's adventures took place, or the early part of this one, (as he says in the book,) "speculation is as old as the hills.

The principles of human and market behavior never change! A joy to read this book.

Very entertaining to see that most things in the stock market have not changed the last hundred years. Not exactly a literary masterpiece, but plenty of good advice here and there. You can probably survive without, but defintely a beneficial read for people interested in the market.

Edwin Lefèvre does a fantastic job bringing the experiences of Jesse Livermore (disguised in the pages as Larry Livingston) to life in this fantastic book. This work is written as a novel and almost as a biography, in which Livermore describes his career as a stock operator. He starts from his childhood days in bucket shops (which earned him the title of "boy plunger"), continues with his experiences on Wall Street - where he made and lost millions of dollars over and over again, and finishes with intriguing stories on price manipulation and speculation back in the earlier half of the 20th century.

All throughout the book, amidst the inspiring stories and witty humor, the reader will find numerous pieces of advice - on anything from human psychology and public behavior to insider trading and investing/speculation strategies. I completely agree with other reviewers who state that this book needs to be read more than once. You simply won't absorb all the useful information the first time. Maybe not even the first two times. Or three.

Some of the book's advice is very obvious, as it is repeated many times over. Livermore makes his basic strategy clear - incremental or "probe" approach, where he would slowly build his position in a certain stock/commodity by buying (or selling) blocks of securities until he reached his target - if the ticker tape confirmed his outlook. For example, assume Livermore wanted to go long on A with an investment target of $10,000. He'd first buy $1,000 and wait. If the price moved up, his assessment seemed to be correct - so he'd buy another $2,000 of A at the slightly higher price. If the price kept going up, he'd then increase his position to $6,000 - and eventually up to $10,000 - his original target. If, of course, the price reacted differently, his market "probe" would tell him that his assessment may not have been correct.

Other "obvious" advice in the book is equally important - history repeats itself (he describes 2 amazing cases - Stratton's corner on corn and insider boosting of Tropical Trading - where he used the same technique to turn a commodity or stock bearish), don't ever follow tips from anyone (trust in yourself only), and don't cash out quickly for a small profit - but rather ride your investment out (go long in a bull market, short in a bear market).

Amidst examples and stories in which the above pieces of advice appear to shine over and over again, other small and hidden tid-bits pop up throughout the entire book. Livermore is unafraid to talk about his mistakes, and he makes it clear that it's not his wish to brag about his successes - but to simply inform the reader why he did what he did. And he does a fantastic job in that.

The book is very well written. It feels like a novel, where every chapter follows the main story arc but talks about something different each time, with great insight on yet another topic. The stories are very engaging, often witty and humorous. I read through more than half of the book carefree, simply enjoying the great prose and Lefèvre's literary skill - before I realized that Livermore has been giving me timelessly precious advice all throughout, and that I need to pay more attention.

I will read this book again. I will take notes again. I don't want to miss anything.

In conclusion, I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the stock or commodities markets. It is enjoyable and entertaining, and it is eye-opening and insightful. It can be read simply as a collection of intriguing stories, or as an "investment bible" with much advice that is still applicable today. While the rules of the exchanges and the amount of money that flows through them have changed, the people trying to beat the market haven't.

Pros:
+ beautiful literary prose
+ intriguing, engaging, witty stories
+ lots and lots of investment advice that still holds true today (80+ years later!)
+ many examples of historical events that have and will continue to repeat themselves
+ great as either a low-key bed-time book or as a serious stock/commodity investment and speculation guide
+ each chapter talks about something new, making it easy to read the book over time without losing track of the main story

Cons:
- first published in 1923 - so keep in mind that, of course, some things are outdated (i.e. certain rules and practices are in place now that weren't then, the amount of money has increased to a point where stock price manipulation is not as easy, etc.) - but treat this as a history lesson
- probably needs to be read more than once (but is that really a con?) for the investment advice

I heard Cramer mention this book. He said it was his favorite book about trading. LeFevre was a kid without any formal education who started working for brokerage houses around the turn of the 20th century. His reminiscences of how he developed into the incredible trader he became is both refreshing and familiar. The stock market was a totally different world in those days and many of the institutions which were part of it no longer exist, but the principles LeFevre writes about are unchanging.

A great read and a surefire way to get your head on straight and deal properly with the fear/greed bugaboo.

This item was advertised as a CD but instead I received magnetic tape! Nobody checked to find out whether I want the tapes. I'm not impressed, in fact I'm totally pissed off!!! I would return the tapes but for the fact that the cost is prohibitive. I also ordered the book and received that OK but what the hell do you think you're doing??? I will not be making use of amazon.com again - ever.

Reminiscences of a Stock Operator was nothing like I expected, but much more than I could have imagined. I expected a book full of trading wisdom from the early part of the 1900's that would still apply today. Sure enough, ideas like going with trend, trying not to pick tops and bottoms, measuring market sentiment, trusting your own system, etc. filled this book. What I did not realize was that this book is a novel that illustrates these timeless trading principles in an entertaining way. This is one of those books you just don't want to put down. If you have a passion for trading and love a good, light novel, this book is for you!

If you are looking to start trading the stock market this is an absolute must first read. This isn't a book about a trading system. It doesn't tell you buy points or sell points. There is absolutely no information on how to screen the market for the next big thing. What it does tell you is how the market behaves and what to expect.

When I first started trading I read How To Make Money in Stocks by William O'Neil, and I have had great success with his strategy. I wish I had read this one first. It gives you a much greater idea of how stocks can behave and how you should react to that behavior. It shows you what happens when you let your emotions get in the way, in the words of someone that let that happen - several times. I'm not saying you'll be able to take your emotions out of a trade, but you will have a better idea of what to expect emotionally. Then you will be better prepared to handle it.

Read this book. Then read How to Make Money in Stocks.

If you are looking to start trading the stock market this is an absolute must first read. This isn't a book about a trading system. It doesn't tell you buy points or sell points. There is absolutely no information on how to screen the market for the next big thing. What it does tell you is how the market behaves and what to expect.

When I first started trading I read How To Make Money in Stocks by William O'Neil, and I have had great success with his strategy. I wish I had read this one first. It gives you a much greater idea of how stocks can behave and how you should react to that behavior. It shows you what happens when you let your emotions get in the way, in the words of someone that let that happen - several times. I'm not saying you'll be able to take your emotions out of a trade, but you will have a better idea of what to expect emotionally. Then you will be better prepared to handle it.

Read this book. Then read How to Make Money in Stocks. Then make tons of money.

Product arrived promptly and was in even better condition than advertised. Completely happy with this purchase!

Product arrived promptly and was in even better condition than advertised. Completely happy with this purchase!

This book is a classic. It was recommended to me, and I understand why. This book is written from the perspective of a powerful and successful trader who actually lived 'the life' of a trader. His ups, and his downs. What is valuable about the book is his insights into trading. He helps a novice understand why the deck is stacked against you, and for the more experienced, provides the warm and fuzzy's of a collegues world experience. If you are considering being a trader, or have just started down the path, reading this book will provide you with the 'back drop' or 'scene and setting' for developing a mindset that MAY help you be successful. In other words, this book is a book of wisdom, that is, if you would rather learn from someone elses success and failures, then to learn them all on your own. Granted, there is much to learn in the commodities trading world, but this book is small price to pay to avoid at least some of the negative experiences the protaganist experiences.
I couldnt put the book down, but then again, I am currently fascinated with the traders profession.

This book is a classic. It was recommended to me, and I understand why. This book is written from the perspective of a powerful and successful trader who actually lived 'the life' of a trader. His ups, and his downs. What is valuable about the book is his insights into trading. He helps a novice understand why the deck is stacked against you, and for the more experienced, provides the warm and fuzzy's of a collegues world experience. If you are considering being a trader, or have just started down the path, reading this book will provide you with the 'back drop' or 'scene and setting' for developing a mindset that MAY help you be successful. In other words, this book is a book of wisdom, that is, if you would rather learn from someone elses success and failures, then to learn them all on your own. Granted, there is much to learn in the commodities trading world, but this book is small price to pay to avoid at least some of the negative experiences the protaganist experiences.
I couldnt put the book down, but then again, I am currently fascinated with the traders profession.

If you are curious about how an extremely clever speculator thinks and lived his life this is a must. If you are looking for how to trade there are a few very general gems in there, but you have to look for them.
An example in one part of his life he knew the market would moved in a certain direction and so shorted but the market wasn't ready to move quite then and he suffered as the market moved in the wrong direction for a while. So he learnt to be prepared for a change but not to act until the market showed the change was active. A very general common sense rule, but the telling of that episode for me was great (much more interesting than I made it sound) so it has stuck in my mind and stopped me making mistakes. Also it shows how dangerous the stock market can be with those once in a lifetime events that will probably happen one day in your lifetime.

This is it folks, when all is said and done, the world of making money in the stock market comes down to a handful of books. Knowledge that you must absorb, NO, more than absorb, you have to take OWNERSHIP of this knowledge. More than any other book, this book is on the list. Oh yes, there are several others you desperately need to OWN also.

Certainly you should be reading all of Benjamin Graham's works including "Security Analysis", the 1940 Edition, and also Graham's "The Intelligent Investor". Philip Fisher's extraordinary "Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits" is another fabulous work, but none of them, and no other book for that matter reads like a novel, a Hollywood thriller in fact - only Edwin Lefevre's "Reminiscences...." fulfills that role.

Very briefly, Jesse Livermore's life as a stock and commodities trader is portrayed in the book through the character of Larry Livingston. As you probably know, in a novel you can do and say things, and take literary license that you could never do in an actual biography.

The period covered is basically the beginning of the 20th century through the 1920's. Livermore made and lost several fortunes in his lifetime; ultimately he went belly up and emotionally could not deal with it. This led to his suicide in a hotel in New York City. With today's medical knowledge he would have been classified with severe bipolar disorder, and presumably drugs would have been able to reign in the personality extremes that he suffered from. Of course that is now, and we are dealing with then.

What is noteworthy is that Livermore was astute enough to realize that he had these bouts of depression, and he did not trade during those periods when he suffered from them. He knew his thinking was not clear enough during those periods, and his judgment would suffer, and oh did this man have judgment. He was the ultimate professional trader.

This is not a book to be read once. In that it is like reading Shakespeare's plays. Each time you work your way through it, you will learn more and more. If you have trading experiences to fall back on, then this book becomes even more important to you. Read the book in conjunction with your trading. You will understand what you did wrong, and what you NEED TO CHANGE, to do it right.

There are some who will tell you that Jesse Livermore was such a force in the markets, that it is hinted that he was responsible for the market crash of 1929, the tsunami of all market crashes. John Kenneth Galbraith, the Harvard economist, and one of the most knowledgeable historians dealing with the depression, argues differently. What is important is that Livermore had to hire a bodyguard during this period, and also went into seclusion, which indicates that many people believed the story.

There was a point in his career where Livermore made as much as $[...] million in trading profits in a month. Imagine, at a time when a 6 course meal at Delmonico's on Wall Street was a dollar? Here are some of the extraordinary concepts you will pick up in reading this book:



* "WHATEVER HAPPENS IN THE STOCK MARKET TODAY HAS HAPPENED BEFORE, AND WILL HAPPEN AGAIN."
I am personally 35 years into trading, and formally retired from Wall Street when I was 45. You have no idea how important Livermore's advice is. There is no substitute for years of experience living through the cycles. It gives you a tremendous grounding in historical truth that prevents you from getting suckered out at the bottom, or fooled at tops.


* "WEAPONS CHANGE, BUT STRATEGY REMAINS STRATEGY, ON THE NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE AS ON THE BATTLEFIELD..."
Yes, and this is why a great stock trader from the 1920's, would do just as well today as then. I knew Salim Cy Lewis the modern founder of Bear Stearns; some would argue he was as good a trader as Livermore. I worked for Alan "Ace" Greenberg, Chairman of Bear Stearns, who was the greatest trader of his generation. Livermore is right, learn the strategies, and you will be successful on any battlefield, at any point in history.


* "THOU SHALL NEVER FIGHT THE TREND"
Ignore this instruction at your peril, never catch a falling knife. Let it hit the floor, and then buy on the way up. Never buy on the way down, you never know where down is, where down stops. You only buy on the way up.


* "LET YOUR PROFITS RUN AND CUT YOUR LOSSES SHORT"
Who doesn't know this; just try executing on it consistently, every day, day in, day out. Try taking emotion out of the trade, try to be objective. Try selling, realizing you were wrong, and jump right back in, while your fellow traders think you are nuts.


* "NO STOCK IS TOO HIGH TO BUY OR TOO LOW TO SELL"
This is such common sense that a child would say, well of course that's what you should do. It takes a rare type of individual that can live by the code, and execute on its wisdom daily.


Jesse Livermore was everything you think he was, and more. His untimely death at his own hand is not what should be studied, and learned. We all have our pains that we must deal with. Read this book, and change your investing life forever, or don't read it, and pay a price with your portfolio, and forgone profits. Good luck

Richard Stoyeck
StocksAtBottom.com

The great stock market speculator Jesse Livermore's trials and tribulations are still applicable and fascinating almost a century later. This book details his extreme highs and lows, from bankruptcy to millionaire (several times), in writing that puts you right there in the trading pit. Any daytrader to investor can learn a great deal from this, with its brilliant insight into money management and discipline. This book is up there with Carnegies How to Win Friends to me, one that I re-read at least once a year.

Jesse Livermore committed suicide on November 28, 1940 after incurring heavy losses in the market. This book is a fictionalized account of his life. It is undoubtably a classic, but readers tempted to follow his advice would do well to consider that he had repeatedly lost his entire fortune, regained it, only to lose it again not long afterwards. Not long before he died, he finished a book on his investment strategies. Unlike this book, it didn't sell very well back then, and it still doesn't sell well now. Readers should also keep in mind that the author of this
book, a writer by the name of Lefevre, wasn't much of an investor himself (just a few isolated investments over his lifetime, according to the book's foreword.) Apparently, the author didn't have much faith in Livermore's methods.

It's almost funny how often I've seen this book mentioned by other books on investing. For the most part, they neglected to mention how he died and why.

This book was first published in 1927, and there are a few times throughout the book that the reader gets a sense of the fictionalized story's age. But for the most part, this book is still very applicable to anyone interested in learning more behind the mindset of a professional stock trader, not to mention the fascinating insights into how the market worked one hundred years ago. Although I am not much of a trader, professionally or otherwise, this book helped me understand the stock market better. Yet, it assumes that the reader already has a basic knowledge of how the market works and the various strategies traders' use to maximize their return. In other words, this is not a book to pick up without having a basic knowledge of trading stocks. It was interesting, but dragged on towards the end, forcing me to go through the last few chapters rather quickly. Nonetheless, it was enjoyable to read and contained advice for any trader in today's market. I agree with another reviewer, this could be a great movie!

This book was recommended reading in almost every stock trading book I have read. I simply had to buy it and read it. usually I am disappointed by anything that is over hyped and considered such a classic. Not with this book. It was even better than I anticipated. It shows how the greatest stock trader of all time Jesse Livermore traded. (He is called Larry Livingston in the book).Even though this book was first published in 1923 and his trading occurred in the early part of the 20th century it is still applicable because people do not change. This book will take you past P/E ratios, book value, moving averages, etc. and shows what really moves stock prices:people. It is a battle between bulls and bears. The decisions people make determine prices. That is how Livermore traded, he was a cool, calm trader who would go short or long depending on the market. He was an avid ticker tape reader watching peoples behaviors to identify trends. Livermore made his first million while he was very young, lost it, and then made it all back. His mental coolness and his ability to see patterns developing made him great. The author does an excellent job narrating for Livermore and making his story interesting and enjoyable reading.

This book also made me get out of a trade I thought would be successful based on Livermore's talking about the dangers when "Stocks do not act right". This book saved me $1200 in that trade.

Page 260: The speculators deadly enemies:Ignorance, greed, fear and hope.

This book is about the joys and trials of a stock operator and makes for a good read. It is a must for those interested in investing and trading. It is recommended that one read this book and be thoughtful of the lessons learned in the character's life, so as not to be so easily fooled or toyed with when entering the market.