Reminiscences of a Stock Operator

Rating:
Summary: You Won't Wonder How It's Still a Classic
Review: What makes a classic a classic? It's that the truths taught so many years ago are still true today.

Jesse Livermore in this book written nearly a century ago (minus just a few years) teaches us truths of the market. And those truths hold today.

How much does news help your trades? How much do friends and tipsters help your trades? How much do YOU help others by telling them about your trades?

Jesse reveals why you should ignore the news (you'll always be the last to hear it, learn that), ignore friends and family (when it comes to stock tips), and stop giving advice too. All three are disasters for you and everybody else.

The market is there to tell its own story. You can study the tape (using Livermore's language) and with practice and some knack for the skill, you can learn to trade successfully. Livermore got rich by sticking to his plans and by making sure the market itself was the only thing he studied.

I don't think this book will teach you what to do as much as it trains you to STOP doing things that detract you and distract you from what the market is trying to tell you all the time. Listen to the market and you'll make some cash.

Rating:
Summary: Very relevant today
Review: I was recommended this book by a good friend of mine who works in the market. I was told that this is the book to read when you want to begin understanding the goings on in the market. And he was right. The book gets better as it goes on. Very interesting and very relevant to today's market. You will learn some things reading the chapters, its worthwhile.

Rating:
Summary: Mainly Entertainment
Review: I bought this book mainly because of all the rave reviews. Now that i have read it i am puzzled at how it could have recieved so many good reviews? This book is just a newspaperman`s account of a series of interviews he had with jesse livermore, there is nothing in this book to educate you as to when to buy or sell or what criteria of indicators to apply, other than reading how livermore himself would spot a certain trend and then proceed to make a 10,000 share probe buy or sell to test it. Many of the things mentioned in the book are now illegal or outdated. For instance the probe buys livermore would do to determine demand for a commodity or stock would be impractical for the average investor to apply. The book is long for what it has to say, it reads more like an entertaining historical account of a bygone era. The few tidbits i got out of it such as trade with the trend, cut loses, let profits ride etc... have been echoed in dozens of other books. Read this book if you must but be aware it is mainly a book of historical value and entertainment appeal more than anything else. Just my humble opinion....

Rating:
Summary: leverage the experience of a great speculator
Review: If you want to learn about medicince, go to medical school. If you want to learn about succesful speculation buy this book and read it, highlight it, study it, then repeat that process over and over. If you can truly grasp the lessons of this book, (and it will take many reads, self-discipline, patience, and experience in the market betting real money to do so) you will significantly improve your performance. My copy of this book is practically completeley highlighted. If you ever read Market wizards (If you have not you really should, If you have, read it again) which profiles some of the great market players of our time, you will realize that so many of those market masters learned so much from this book. After you read this book, read other books on trading and you will see that most of what you will read is much of this books lessons rehashed. Much of the wisdom taught in this book was said in books by other authors prior to and after reminiscences, but the style in which you learn by reading this book is what makes this book the most valuable investment you can make to dramatically improve your chances of success in the market. If you want more elaboration on the lessons of this book, I reccomend, How to trade in stocks by Jesse Livermore. Some people give that book bad reviews, but I have found the book to complement reminiscences perfectly. Reading reminiscences of a stock operator and how to trade in stocks is as close as you will ever get to having the opprtunity to leverage the experience and be mentored by one of the greatest speculators of all time.

Rating:
Summary: Very interesting read
Review: I'm not a trader. I'm not an investor either. But someday I hope to be. I'm glad that I read this book first.

I highly recommend this book to anyone that is considering an entry into trading, whether or not you plan on investing long term, short term, swing or day trading you'll gain some valuable information here. I think the most important point the author makes in the book is that trading or investing is often a game of the mind. The mind of the individual trader. It's you against you.

Then it's you against the other guy.

It's so obvious, but often forgotten, that when someone is selling something someone else is buying it and visa versa. Think about that. Whenever one guy sells a stock, some other guy thinks he's wrong and is buying it...

Also interesting in this book is the history. For any interested in a little bit of stock market history, this book coupled with a book called "The Screwing of the Average Man", will give some great insights into how much the general public is often played for a sucker.

Don't be a sucker, read this book and take to heart the strong advice on how not to lose.

Rating:
Summary: This book will change your trading style for the better
Review: I have read this book 3 times. Each time I read it, I get more and more out of it.

I learned not only what to do, but what not to do in the stock market. After all, although Jessie made millions, he also lost those millions just as quickly, going bankrupt more than once. He openly admits to his mistakes, and warns others not to repeat them.

Although not chronicled in this book, sadly even the master himself finally died a bankrupt. He was unable to consistently follow his own advice.

Of all the trading books I have read, this is the only one which translated into consistent results for me and truly changed the way I looked at and behaved in the market.

If you own even a single stock, buy this book. Not only is it educational, it is also well written and extremely interesting.

Rating:
Summary: Full of Sage Observations
Review: If you are new to trading I would suggest reading A Beginner's Guide to Short Term Trading by Toni Turner, as each chapter starts with a passage from this book. Nearly all technical anaylsis books quote numerous passages from Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, so it will likely satisfy your curiosity to go ahead and read it yourself.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting Historical Account
Review: This is a very interesting book, because it gives a historical account of a stock trader (Jesse Livermore) during the first quarter
of the 20th century. It is nice to see that human psychology really hasn't changed in a hundred years. People still panic, they still are subject to greed and fear. The chapters consist of stories, recounted by the great trader himself.

However, then there is the book itself, and it's "organization". It doesn't have any. There is no table of contents, there is no
index, and bizarrely enough, the chapters have numbers but no names. Very medieval, except that the pages do have numbers.

Also, I'm still puzzled as to why, with his experience and money management methods, Livermore was till frequently wiped out. Although one thing does become clear - if you want to become really rich, use leverage.

Rating:
Summary: A legendary book
Review: The narrator is Jesse Livermore, alias Larry Linvingstone, a famous trading figure of the earlier part of the last century. His main trading activity consisted of tape reading and trading along the line of least resistance, whether on the up or downside, although he seems to have had a definitive acumen in accurately anticipating bearish contrarian positions.

The book stresses bold, intelligent, consistent gut-felt speculation, if there ever was such a thing, against pure gambling, or even against rational investing, for that matter. The core material is delivered somewhere along the middle of the book:

"The speculator is not an investor. His object is not to secure a steady return on his money at a good rate of interest, but to profit by either a rise or a fall in the price of whatever he may be speculating in. Therefore the thing to determine is the speculative line of least resistance at the moment of trading; and what he should wait for is the moment when that line defines itself, because that is his signal to get busy."

Further on, you read:

"The business of the trader in commodities is simply to get facts about the demand and supply, present and prospective. He does not indulge in guesses about a dozen of things as he does in stocks. It always appealed to me - trading in commodities."

The book just abounds in such experienced, rational and down to earth quotations and confessions. It depicts not only the narrator's attitude and mentality, but these of numerous other marketplayers as well:

"The old fellow asked me a lot of questions. When I got through telling him about my usual practice in trading he nodded and said, "Yes! Yes! You're right. The way you're built, the way your mind runs, makes your system a good system for you. It comes easy for you to practice what you preach, because the money you bet is the least of your cares. I recollect Pat Hearne. Ever hear of him? Well, he was a very well-known sporting man and he had an account with us. Clever chap and nervy. He made money in stocks, and that made people ask him for advice. He never would give any. If they [...]. He declared he did not see any sense in losing more than one point, whether it came out of his original margin or out of his paper profits. You know, a professional gambler is not looking for long shots, but for sure money. Of course long shots are fine when they come in. In the stock market Pat wasn't after tips or playing to catch twenty-points-a-week advances, but sure money in sufficient quantity to provide him with a good living. Of all the thousands of outsiders that I have run across in wall Street, Pat Hearne was the only one who saw in stock speculation merely a game of chance like faro our roulette, but, nevertheless, had the sense to stick to a relatively sound betting method."

In my view, the quintessence of the narrator's experience and philosophy is delivered by the following tirade:

"The speculator's chief enemies are always boring from within. It is inseparable from human nature to hope and to fear. In speculation when the market goes against you, you hope that every day will be the last day - and you lose more than you should had you not listened to hope - to the same ally that is so potent a success bringer to empire builders and pioneers, big and little. And when the market goes your way, you become fearful that the next day will take your profit, and you get out - too soon. Fear keeps from making as much money as you ought to. The successfull trader has to fight these two deep-seated instincts. He has to reverse what you might call his natural impulses. Instead of hoping he must fear; 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. It is absolutely wrong to gamble in stocks the way the average man does. I have been in the speculative game since I was fourteen. It is all I have ever done. I think I know what I am talking about. And the conclusion that I have reached after nearly thirty years of constant trading, both on a shoestring and with millions of dollars back on me, is this: A man may beat a stock or a group at a certain time, but no man living can beat the stock market!"

The narration, as you can see, has quite an authentic ring to it, provides a good, interesting and sometimes even amusing read. But you will have realized by now that the book is a somehow implicit, if unwilling, advocate of either a) passive EMT, with its today rather vast array of index-based instruments, or b) a rather risky heroic, if not compulsive, active trading philosophy, with its good and bad days, and its sometimes long and expensive road to success.

In fine, if this book is certainly not a bromide, it is neither an advocate for sound sleep while you are active in the stock market. What you will make out of it will depend wholly on your constitution and your frame of mind. But it is a classic.

Rating:
Summary: Great book of speculation psychology
Review: I wish I had read this book fifteen years ago. It is the fictional account of the great stock speculator Jesse Livermore. The author presents his life starting from the bucket shops through his great gains and losses on the actual stock and commodities markets. There are so many pearls of wisdom in this book that can be gleaned by the typical (loser)investor that the book will probably pay for itself by avoiding the first bad trade. I am only giving it four stars because it is dated, but the psycholgy and behaviours has not chnaged since then, so it is still valuable for today.