Jesse Livermore Quotes

Never buy a stock because it has gone up or sell one because it has gone down.

He really meant to tell them that the big money was not in the individual fluctuations but in the main movements that is, not in reading the tape but in sizing up the entire market and its trend.

Everyone has the brainpower to make money in stocks. Not everyone has the stomach. If you are susceptible to selling everything in a panic, you ought to avoid stocks and mutual funds altogether.

In the world of money and investing, you must learn to control your emotions.

You have to be okay with wins and losses. You can't just be looking for the wins and, when the losses happen, you can't buy more and more because you're sure it's going to bounce. We call that revenge trading.

For most people, attaining the intellectual clarity and emotional detachment that investing requires is tough.

Success in investing doesn't correlate with I.Q. once you're above the level of 25. Once you have ordinary intelligence, what you need is the temperament to control the urges that get other people into trouble in investing.

The Stock Market is designed to transfer money from the Active to the Patient.

Wall Street is littered with the bones of those who knew just what to do, but could not bring themselves to do it.

Our stay-put behavior reflects our view that the stock market serves as a relocation center at which money is moved from the active to the patient.

Men who can both be right and sit tight are uncommon. I found it one of the hardest things to learn. But it is only after a stock operator has firmly grasped this that he can make big money.

I think there's something to be said for developing the disposition to own stocks without fretting.

To me, the "tape" is the final arbiter of any investment decision. I have a cardinal rule: Never fight the tape!

There's no shame in losing money on a stock. Everybody does it. What is shameful is to hold on to a stock, or worse, to buy more of it when the fundamentals are deteriorating.

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.

For some reason, people take their cues from price action rather than from values. What doesn't work is when you start doing things that you don't understand or because they worked last week for somebody else. The dumbest reason in the world to buy a stock is because it's going up.

I never argue with the tape. To be angry at the market because it unexpectedly or even illogically goes against you is like getting mad at your lungs because you have pneumonia.

I never, ever, ever let emotion get in the way of an investment.

It never was my thinking that made the big money for me. It always was my sitting. Got that? My sitting tight! It is no trick at all to be right on the market. You always find lots of early bulls in bull markets and early bears in bear markets. I've known many men who were right at exactly the right time, and began buying or selling stocks when prices were at the very level which should show the greatest profit. And their experience invariably matched mine--that is, they made no real money out of it. Men who can both be right and sit tight are uncommon.

Much of our trading comes down to a battle between our patience and our impulses.

Patience is one of the most valuable attributes in investing.

Stocks are the only thing that people are happy to buy when the price goes up.

It is far more difficult... to know when to sell a stock than when to buy.

Speculative stock movements are carried too far in both directions, frequently in the general market and at all times in at least some of the individual issues.