In your opinion: Greatest speculator ever or loser who commited suicide? What principles of his do you use? DTP
IMHO Jesse was a great trader. The fact that he committed suicide was just another part of his trading strategy. He knew when to cut his losses. regards
Jessie Livermore was one of the world's greatest traders. Unfortunately, he was the Mike Tyson of the trading world.
================================== Like the Jesee Livermore-Lefevre-mining engineer principle of for example in a IRA, Pension Plan; Old Turkey was his nickname & Old Turkey held them in a bull market ''Its a bull market you know'' Researched certain measurements of a bull uptrend; it sure doesnt depend on CNBC or CNN.
Many famous trading quotes come from him. He was a big trader and the great boy plunger. His balls were what made him great and were also his downfall. His money management was better it seemed in theory then in reality. He seemed to not always follow his own advice. Simple methods also, but he was willing to follow it with conviction. He traded basically off of support or resistance numbers. Either way, I loved him and I think the trading world was blessed with his presence.
When he covered his shorts during the '29 crash I think he had something like 100 or 300 million in the bank, those were real dollars then. He did not lose that fortune by blowing out Neider style, although he did blow out a couple of time on the way up. I would like someone to say exactly how he lost the $$$. It wasn't detailed in the usual Livemore books. He was depressed that he was blamed for the Great Depression. Alot of congressmen were demagoging against him as evil personified. There was the unsaid threat of imprisonment. There were threats against his children. Also he was sued a few times and did not defend those suits due to his depression (according to those same Livermore books). Anyone with the real info on how he lost his final $300 million please reply here. The thing about Livermore is that he knew how to spend it when he had it. Which is something I like. He knew how to dress and his wife knew how to put on some big parties (unlike the professionally near-autistic Bill Gates who has people dress him). Also Livermore didn't go around pretending to live in a ranch house in Nebraska while in reality enjoying a high life style (like some billionaire who tries to redeem himself by taking a vow of poverty).
I don't have any hard evidence but I'm sure the many women in his life had something to do with it. Add in the flaky son and the mental condition and he had a recipe for a huge money drain. Great but sad life story, though, only known by traders. I still go over his maxims and principles on a regular basis. Uni