Jessie Livermore's Methods: Trading Stocks

by Richard D. Wyckoff

The material presented here first appeared as a continuing series of articles in the Magazine of Wall Street. They were obtained through exclusive interviews with Jesse Livermore by R.D. Wyckoff at a time when Livermore was the single most formidable factor in the market. After being "lost" for many years, these interviews are now brought together for the first time under the covers of a book.

Genres: Finance, Nonfiction

64 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1972

About the author

Richard Demille Wyckoff

Reviews

[Chris Esposo · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a strange book, despite the title, it's not really about trading or investments in a substantive manner. Instead, it's more like "a day in the life of Jesse Livermore", the infamous early 20th century trader. I first learned about this individuals from the book "The Zurich Axioms", who portrayed him as charlatan, who claimed to use clairvoyance for his stock selection.

Despite his outsized profits, he never was fully taken seriously by the Wall Street crowd of the time because of this reputation. He evidently published a small book on "serious" analysis / strategies for trading late in his life, but according ot the "Zurich Axiom", those advice often led to catastrophe for their users (thought what they were were never specified).

This book is not really about Livermore's ideas (serious or otherwise), and mostly like a short tract on how he organizes his life around his work, and how this organization allows him to increase his chance of success. The best advice given is to sleep early and wake early, since the extreme early mornings allow one to meditate on deep notions. Totally agree, though a bit challenging to implement if you want to have a life outside of trading. The other advice have much to do with the way he laid out his office to best "read the tape" (the book was literally written when tapes were how one got trading information), and how he setup his office to exploit the information he was receiving. I suppose this would be akin to setting up your trade desk on a computer, or maybe setting up/building an analytic dashboard via computer.

Being on an hour and a half long, and the nature of the content, it's easily skippable. Not recommended.

[Brad Mills · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great summary of lessons learned from fictional trader in the early 1900s.

It's better to read "Reminiscences of a Stock Operator"

I read that book 4-5 times and wanted to get more, so I picked this up.

[Trung · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very short but as very important wisdoms for anyone want to learn how to trade successful

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jesse Livermore's insights into making money in stocks are timeless.
Even a century later, his ideas remain the foundation of the most successful market trading tactics. Jesse Livermore was a genius market speculator who made fortunes and lost fortunes again, speculating on the financial markets. Richard D. Wyckoff gives an excellent summary of Jesse's business and personal life. This book is an excellent addition to other books written about Jesse Livermore, including the one written by Jesse Livermore himself.

[Jonathan Birnbaum · Rating 3 out of 5]

At the length of a podcast I found this a fun listen and reaffirmed some core beliefs about trading: a) don't add to your losers (average down) b) add to your winners. Some of the anecdotes were interesting about manipulating the smaller rye market to move the larger grain market - the games of trading are timeless. Only worth reading if you love markets.

[John Shelton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Livermores’ trading techniques

I liked this book because it shows some of livermores’ trading strategies. I don’t think he would have been interested in telling the world all his secrets about how he makes money in the stock market but it looks like he has shared enough knowledge so a person should be able to jump into the market and start trading and make some money

[Bruno Gomes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Não tão interessante quanto "reminiscências". A descrição das estratégias de manipulação é bem educativa para entender o que acontece com os preços no curto prazo, mas são coisas inaplicáveis com o tamanho do mercado 100 anos depois.

[J.B. Siewers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not spectacular but for the right crowd decent enough

[Deb Kim · Rating 1 out of 5]

so so

so so this is ok book and has some interesting stuff but not sure if worth the time and money

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good read, but too small to call it a book.