Finance Quotations – 03

Famous Finance, Business, Trading, and Investing Quotations

The following are quotes from Edwin Lefevre’s investment classic Reminiscences of a Stock Operator.  Unless otherwise noted the quotes are of trading legend Jesse Livermore using the fictional character Lawrence Livingston.  Visit this site for a detailed summary of Reminiscences of a Stock Operator.

There is nothing new in Wall Street.  Because speculation is as old as the hills.  Whatever happens in the stock market today has happened before and will happen again.

The big money is made by sitting, not thinking.  Men who can both be right and sit tight are uncommon.

The point is not so much to buy as cheap as possible or go short at top price, but to buy or sell at the right time.

I never argue with the tape.

There is nothing like losing for teaching you what not to do.

There are only two emotions in the market, hope and fear – the only problem is you hope when you should fear and fear when you should hope.

Whenever things didn’t come out as they should, I’d quit.  There was no sense in arguing.  The pressing need when one is wrong is to quit quick.  I always cut short my losses.

There is only one side to the stock market; and it is not the bull side or the bear side, but the right side.

The big money is in the big swing.  And no matter who opposes it, the swing must run as far and as fast and as long as the impelling forces determine.

Nowhere does history indulge in repetitions so often or so uniformly as in Wall Street.  When you read contemporary accounts of booms or panics the one thing that strikes you most forcibly is how little either stock speculation or stock speculators today differ from yesterday.  The game does not change and neither does human nature.

Never try to sell at the top.  Sell after a reaction (correction) if there is no (recovery) rally.

I cleared about three million dollars in 1916 by being bullish as long as the bull market lasted and then by being bearish when the bear market started. A man does not have to marry one side of the market till death do them part.

It has always seemed to me the height of damfoolishness to trade on tips.

To make money in the market, I never buy at the bottom and I always sell too soon.
Baron Rothchild

If you owe a bank a dollar and can’t pay, you have  a problem.  If you owe them a million and can’t pay, they have a problem.
Mark Twain

The smarter they are the easier it (the market) fools them.
Edwin Lefevre
Reminiscences of a Stock Operator

The repetitions of history serve but to annoy youth.
Edwin Lefevre
Reminiscences of a Stock Operator

Cause of death: Acute bearishness in a bull market.  Not an obscure disease.  How did he come to contract it, with all his experience and skill?  Because he was a human being.  That is why the game beats them all.
Edwin Lefevre
Reminiscences of a Stock Operator