Reminiscences of a Stock Operator

Reminiscences of a Stock Operator

ISBN
0471059706
Author
Edwin Lefevre
Published
Feb 9, 2012
First published in 1923, Reminiscences of a Stock Operator is the fictionalized biography of Jesse Livermore, one of the greatest speculators ever. Reminiscences remains the most widely read, highly recommended investment book ever written. Generations of investors have found that it has more to teach them about themselves and other investors than years of experience in the market. This is a timeless tale that will enrich the lives - and portfolios - of today's investors as it has those of generations past.

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Latest reviews

One of the Classics!

I was given my first copy of this classic book on trading when I started working for a major investment bank back in the 1980's. I have since read it multiple times and still consider it an invaluable part of my financial library. It covers the trading-related life of a highly successful trader with such insight that it helps me get into a similar mindset for success when I feel I may have strayed. His lifetime worth of experience both making and losing fortunes are respectively very educational as to what to do and not to do as a trader. Highly recommended!
Spend an hour with this book everyday

I came across this book for the first time in 1996, when I was working for a Member of Bangalore Stock Exchange. The stock exchange had a good library and I used to take this particular book Reminiscences of Stock Operator and kept renewing it for over 2 years. I loved to read it over and over again. I have purchased a copy of the book and now read it atleast 2 or 3 times year.
I was a blind trader till 1996. I get an information from one of the trading colleagues from another brokerag on the floor of the stock exchange or from another rokerage house in Mumbai or Calcutta. Some worked, some did not. But after reading this book, it opened my mind to more creative ways in trading. I educated myself to different ways of approaching a trade. I got attracted more to the technical analysis than fundamental analysis. But I never ignored the fundamentals at any time. it took about 4-5 years to realise what are the Do's and Dont's that I should follow. Everything learned by experience, not from book.
I recommend this book to everyone and insist on owning a personal copy of the same. Its written in way that one can simply visualise it infront of us. We see things happening infront of us, as if watching a movie. Its not about moralising and ethicalising all that is happening in market. Its just about what a trader should be doing. It takes us to a world where powerful men moved the markets from behind the scenes, how their mind worked, how they studied the crowd, how scamsters operated and so on. In a world of no computers, internet and research houses, how they identified good trading and investment bets and profited from it;its worth spending atleast an hour with this book every day.
Valuable lessons!

Excellent book

Helped equip me with the right mindset of accepting losses as a business cost becuase "the market will do what it does"

Also teaches the value of "going with the direction of the market" as well as easy explanations of other principles such as price movement, lines of least resistance and"double pressure"
It also provides a demonstration of the value of remaining determined and believing in your edge
Don't call yourself a trader unless you have read this book

The biggest thing I learned from the book was that even the greats blew out accounts and that I need to always protect capital and stash it away when times are good away from the market. Timeless classic
Timeless Classic

You owe it to yourself to buy this book! What are you waiting for...
Great Trading Book to learn from

A must have especiall for the short pyramiding trader
Great book

This is masterpice that every trader needs to read.
Excellent.

The best and most useful trading book there is. Bar none.
The Greatest Trading Book Ever Written

Not much more to be said. If you are serious about trading, you must read this book. 10 out of 10.
Great book

Edwin Lefevre's "Reminiscences of a Stock Operator" is a "fictionalized" memoir of the real-life trader Jesse Livermore - considered by some the greatest stock trader of all-time. Working in the early twentieth century, Livermore started from nothing and built multi-million dollar wealth multiple times, only to repeatedly lose it. Livermore was so respected and feared during his era that rumors of his trades would create and destroy fortunes on Wall Street. In this book, written in 1922, Livermore tells the

This book is not a full memoir of his life and instead focuses only on his "business." He only refers to his wife or personal life as it relates to his investing; for example, in one case, one executive "used" his wife by dropping some insider information to her over dinner in an effort to encourage Livermore to trade in that company. Livermore did, but - as someone who didn't believe in buying on tips - her instead shorted that company. Still, because he never focused on his personal life and rarely on his personal feelings, I was shocked to later read that Livermore killed himself twenty years later and had had four wives.

This book is full of "trading" (not investing") advice. Is any of his advice relevant today? While his techniques may not work for the modern trader, much can still be learned from this book. He says it best when he says that, although cadets at West Point need not study archery as practiced by the ancients, "Weapons change, but strategy remains strategy, on the New York Stock Exchange as on the battlefield.... `The principles of successful stock speculation are based on the supposition that people will in the future will continue to make the mistakes that they have made in the past.'"

"Reminiscences of a Stock Operator" is written in a very matter-of-fact style that is easy to read. It is a very interesting book to read and a window on another era. Still, many of the lessons and strategies are still useful for the modern trader.
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