Jesse Livermore Quotes

The three traits speculators must learn to manage within themselves are confidence, fear, and aggressiveness.

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.

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

But successful investors tend to be not too self-destructive. They tend to be patient, they tend not to follow the crowd, and they tend not to be too guilty about winning.

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

One of the most helpful things that anybody can learn is to give up trying to catch the last eighth - or the first. These two are the most expensive eighths in the world. They have cost stock traders, in the aggregate, enough millions of dollars to build a concrete highway across the continent.

Investing requires qualities of temperament way more than it requires qualities of intellect.

The investor who permits himself to be stampeded or unduly worried by unjustified market declines in his holdings is perversely transforming his basic advantage into a basic disadvantage.

Investing is simple, but not easy.

It takes character to sit there with all that cash and do nothing. I didn't get to where I am by going after mediocre opportunities.

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.

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.

Prudence is what makes someone a great commodities trader - the capacity to face reality squarely in the eye without allowing emotion or ego to get in the way. It's what is needed by every quarterback or battlefield general.

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.

I have only ever borrowed money for investment. I have been sound money all my life.

Don't be buying out of emotion. Buy less if you love something but feel it's a risky item. We don't want overstock. And remember: No profit, no fun!

I'll never play for more than I can afford to lose.

Eliminate emotion from your investment program.

I've usually used the phrase 'stay the course' as one of the great rules of investment success.

I think there's a lot of trust in being selectively aggressive I guess. Looking for your pitch you can drive, but not swinging if it's not there and not worrying about, 'Oh no, I'm down 0-2.' I feel as comfortable as I do at 0-0. I don't know.

Investing isn't about beating others at their game. It's about controlling yourself at your own game.

One of the most helpful things that any body can learn is to give up trying to catch the last eighth - or the first. These two are the most expensive eighths in the world.

Investors should remember that excitement and expenses are their enemies.

After spending many years in Wall Street and after making and losing millions of dollars I want to tell you this: It never was my thinking that made the big money for me. It always was my sitting. Got that? My sitting tight!