And while the events of a hundred years cannot at all be wholly compared to now, what he relates still strikes me with a deep sense of deja vu. In any case, well worth a read.
Excellent reminder. When I heard about the Blackstone IPO I was asking myself why is this fund going public now and raising cash? Then I thought of "Great Northern".
There's no question Livermore developed a keen sense for market direction. However, he did not pay as much attention to risk management and position sizing. He took enormous risk, so that when he won, he won big, but when he lost, he lost big. Analogous to going all-in during poker. In the end, it turned out badly for him and he committed suicide.
Jesse's third and last wife Harriet drove Jesse and all of her previous husbands to suicide. Jesse often lost big, but he also spent big. Each time he divorced, he walked away from almost all he owned figuring he could make it all back. His second wife Dorothy was left a large fortune.
Chapter 5 is my favorite with "Old Turkey." This is probably my favorite lines in the entire book... "Without faith in his own judgement no man can go very far in this game. That is about all I have learned -- to study general conditions, to take a position and <b>stick to it</b>." I've been in many huge trends at one point or another. When you are patient and stick with big trends is when you make a bundle.
Another super classic... "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 was my sitting <b>Got that? My sitting tight!</b>"
Most important, not necessarily favorite, line is this: "The professional concerns himself with doing the right thing rather than with making money, knowing that the profit takes care of itself if the other things are attended to." And this sounds like a Yogiism: "Speculation is a hard and trying business, and a speculator must be on the job all the time or he'll soon have no job to be on."