Reminiscences of a Stock Operator
Edwin Lefèvre 1923
A fictional trader recounts his rise from small betting shops to the fortunes and disasters of Wall Street. Its narrator, Larry Livingston, is based on real stock trader Jesse Livermore.
392 pages 7h 36m reading time
- Widely seen as the classic book on trading and speculation, and still among the most recommended books for people who work in the markets.
- Argues that prices are driven by the same human feelings in every era (mainly hope, fear, and greed), so the market's patterns keep repeating.
- Teaches that the big money is made by sitting patiently through a large price trend rather than by jumping in and out on every small move, and that a trader's worst enemy is often his own lack of discipline.
- Generations of famous investors and fund managers have named it a major influence, and many trading firms give it to new hires as required reading.
- Its lines, such as "there is nothing new in Wall Street," are still widely quoted as basic rules of trading.
Built from long interviews
Lefèvre, a financial journalist, based it on many conversations with Livermore, who never publicly confirmed his role.
First ran in a magazine
The story first appeared in twelve parts in The Saturday Evening Post in 1922 and 1923.
Author credit sparked rumors
The voice sounded so much like Livermore that many readers believed he secretly wrote it himself.
Real crashes in the story
It retells real market panics, like the 1907 crash, in which Livermore famously profited by betting on falling prices.