Profits always take care of themselves but losses never do.
All through time, people have basically acted the same way in the market as a result of greed, fear, ignorance, and hope. This is why the numerical formations and patterns recur on a constant basis.
The stock market is never wrong. Traders are wrong.
Always sell what shows you a loss and keep what shows you a profit.
Successful trading is always an emotional battle for the speculator, not an intelligent battle.
Throughout all my years of investing I've found that the big money was never made in the buying or the selling. The big money was made in the waiting.
Remember that stocks are never too high for you to begin buying or too low to begin selling.
If you can’t sleep at night because of your stock market position, then you have gone too far. If this is the case, then sell your position down to the sleeping level.
You know, a professional gambler is not looking for long shots, but for sure money.
Jesse Livermore Quotes on Stock Market Movements
The trend is your friend.
The stock market is never wrong. Traders are wrong.
There is only one side of the market and it is not the bull side or the bear side, but the right side.
I absolutely believe that price movement patterns are being repeated. They are recurring patterns that appear over and over, with slight variations. This is because markets are driven by humans -- and human nature never changes.
It is the change in the major trend that hurts most speculators. The last gasp of heavy volume provides a great opportunity to sell out any illiquid large holdings. I knew it was foolish to ever catch the tops or the bottoms of the moves. It is always better to sell large holdings into an advancing market when there is plenty of volume. The same is true on the short side; you are best to cover the short position after a steep, fast decline.
In a narrow market, when prices are not getting anywhere to speak of but move within a narrow range, there is no sense in trying to anticipate what the next big movement is going to be. The thing to do is to watch the market, read the tape to determine the limits of the get nowhere prices, and make up your mind that you will not take an interest until the prices breaks through the limit in either direction.
Jesse Livermore Quotes on Importance of Trading Rules
We are the sum total of our experience.
I believe that having the discipline to follow your rules is essential. Without specific, clear, and tested rules, speculators do not have any real chance of success.
What beat me was not having brains enough to stick to my own game – that is, to play the market only when I was satisfied that precedents favored my play... No man can have adequate reasons for buying or selling stocks daily.
When you make a trade, you should have a clear target where to sell if the market moves against you. And you must obey your rules! Never sustain a loss of more than 10% of your capital. Losses are twice as expensive to make up. I always established a stop before making a trade.
Jesse Livermore Quotes on Successful Trading
Successful trading is always an emotional battle for the speculator, not an intelligent battle.
I believe that anyone who is intelligent, conscientious, and willing to put in the necessary time can be successful on Wall Street. As long as they realize the market is a business like any other business, they have a good chance to prosper.
The only way you get a real education in the market is to invest cash, track your trade, and study your mistakes... The examination of a losing trade is tortuous but necessary to ensure that it will not happen again.
Throughout all my years of investing I've found that the big money was never made in the buying or the selling. The big money was made in the waiting.
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.
In a bull market the game is to buy and hold until you believe the bull market is near its end.
They say you never go broke taking profits. No, you don’t. But neither do you grow rich taking a four-point profit in a bull market.
I never try to predict or anticipate. I only try to react to what the market is telling me by its behavior. [i.e. what IS the market doing]
Remember that stocks are never too high for you to begin buying or too low to begin selling.
Jesse Livermore Quotes on Risk Management
Do not be invested in the market all the time.
Don't take action with a trade until the market, itself, confirms your opinion.
You know, a professional gambler is not looking for long shots, but for sure money.
Always sell what shows you a loss and keep what shows you a profit.
Take your losses quickly and don’t brood about them. Try to learn from them but mistakes are as inevitable as death.
If you can’t sleep at night because of your stock market position, then you have gone too far.
If this is the case, then sell your position down to the sleeping level.
The big money is made by the sittin' and the waitin' – not the thinking.
Wait until all the factors are in your favor before making the trade.
After I paid off my debts in full I put a pretty fair amount in to annuities.
I made up my mind I wasn’t going to be strapped and uncomfortable and minus a stake ever again.
Jesse Livermore Quotes on Investor Psychology
Fear keeps you from making as much money as you ought to.
All through time, people have basically acted the same way in the market as a result of greed, fear, ignorance, and hope. This is why the numerical formations and patterns recur on a constant basis.
The unsuccessful investor is best friends with hope, and hope skips along life’s path hand in hand with greed when it comes to the stock market.
The average man doesn’t wish to be told that it is a bull or a bear market. What he desires is to be told specifically which particular stock to buy or sell. He wants to get something for nothing. He does not wish to work. He doesn’t even wish to have to think.
I believe that the public wants to be led, to be instructed, to be told what to do. They want reassurance. They will always move en masse, a mob, a herd, a group, because people want the safety of human company. They are afraid to stand alone because they want to be safely included within the herd, not to be the lone calf standing on the desolate, dangerous, wolf-patrolled prairie of contrary opinion.
It cost me millions to learn that another dangerous enemy to a trader is his susceptibility to the urgings of a magnetic personality when plausibly expressed by a brilliant mind.