About three months ago I read Richard Smittenâs âJesse Livermore - Worlds Greatest Stock Traderâ. Billed as âThe Real-Life Story of the Reminiscences of a Stock OperatorLegend.â That it is. It also has a summary of Livermoreâs principles in the back. But its also got the story about how Mrs. Livermore shot and almost killed his son, JesseLivermore Jr. And the story behind Livermoreâs suicide. And the story of how Jesse Jr. committed suicide after being arrested for the attempted murder of a policeman. And about how Mrs. Livermore let Jesseâs fortune dwindle away to nothing. The Livermores were not happy campers. Channel 13 showed had a documentary, once, about the â29 crash that implied that Livermore committed suicide because the new SEC rules prevented him from playing the games he used to play before the crash. Smitten says that the real reason was that Jesse had gone short before the crash and won so big that he didnât think he could ever top that feat. He had finally mastered the market so well that he lost all interest in it. It was never a challenge for him afterward. And since that was his life, he lost interest in life too.