Jesse Livermore: World's Greatest Stock Trader (Wiley Investment Book 86) Kindle Edition

It's just okay. The author comes off as being over-enamored with Livermore.I have probably read Reminiscences 20-30x over the years, and was interested in finding more details on Livermore's personal life (which this book does provide, at times); however, the book's recreations of likely dialogues between the character and others is distracting, mostly coming off as "trying too hard."On a positive note... It is apparent the author put in his time researching the subject. However, parlaying this research into a reenactment of the character's life proves difficult. It's hard to stay engrossed in the material while questioning the authenticity.I sympathize with the author, as I also love the story of Reminiscences. Unfortunately, at times, I found myself cringing in embarrassment for him.The best way I can describe this book is a great try. For that I give the author much credit. But, for as much as I sympathize with the author and after giving it some thought, I believe his research would have been better utilized had he just organized and presented original sources of information not found in Reminiscences. For example, as I went through the NY Times archive, I was able to find what must have been over 100 mentions of Jesse Livermore and his aliases dating back to pre-1900.

Richard Smitten has here used interviews with family members, friends and a number of ancillary sources to augment and complete the now famous Remiscences of a Stock Operator by Edwin Lefevre. That book offers the musings of famous stock speculator Jesse Livermore, in the guise of the pseudonymous Lawrence Livingston, from his earliest days as a board boy marking prices on a chalk board in a brokerage house (before computers, of course!) to his ascendancy as a skilled, respected and highly successful market player. But Remiscences ends before Livermore's great killing in the Crash of '29, when he cleared a hundred million dollars on his short trades while almost everyone else was going broke, and his subsequent decline in the '30s. Livermore, who killed himself in 1940, had apparently lost the taste for the game and, with it, the trader's sixth sense that he'd honed for years up to that point.Smitten's book aims to fill in the gaps and take the tale through to the end and, in part, it succeeds. We get many of the same stories found in Reminiscences though sometimes with less detail. We also get other stories, not previously told, and learn about Livermore's private life including his love of living well, his three wives and two sons by his second wife. Livermore, Smitten tells us, was a very introverted, emotionally repressed individual who did not relate well to others and loved to "play a lone hand." This took its toll on him after his great coup in 1929 and with the dissolution of his second marriage, led to his loss of market skills and self-control.The book adds interesting information to what Livermore himself told us in Reminscences but it does so sporadically and with little real insight into the man, who never quite comes into focus despite all the added anecdotes. The recreated dialogue is often stilted and artificial sounding and the book seems to peter out along with Livermore's life after his market triumphs (and, not infrequently, his surprising defeats) in the earlier years. The final chapter, which is really more about those Livermore left behind after his suicide than about the great man himself, reads like something of an anti-climax with no great new insights to be had. And the chapter on Livermore's trading rules is oddly repetitve, as though Smitten thought he needed to say the same thing, over and over again, to drive the rules into his readers' heads.In the end, Livermore was something of an artifact of his times, a great trader and speculator in a more free-wheeling era. Many of his insights, new at the time, are common practice today and so unsurprising. Still, the key is being able to use them, as Livermore did, rather than just knowing them by rote. Livermore remains an enigma, despite Smitten's effort. My guess is that he still awaits a definitive biography. Until then, though, Smitten's book is useful for those who want to learn a bit more about the "Boy Plunger" who set Wall Street on its ears back in the days before the Great Crash and the Depression which followed it.SWM

To me this book was primarily a history lesson on the early 20th century stock market. It details the life of Jesse Livermore and the lessons he learned trading stocks. It also does a great job giving a history lesson on the stock market of the time.I would recommend this book to the following people:1: You are either a new stock trader or looking to be one. Having a history of the market will help your trading. There are some very valid points made about the importance of keeping emotions out of trading and listening to yourself more than the "experts".2: You are a history buff and want to learn about the stock market from the peoples point of view and not just numbers and what happened.3: You like a good biography.At least some basic stock market knowledge is recommended in order to truly appreciate this book.

Interesting but flawed. Overly sensationalist, entirely factually incorrect in points, which makes you worry about the bits you don't know about (Livermore's final wife did not have four husbands who all committed suicide, for example, which is a pretty serious fact-checking error) and Smitten shouldn't have bothered putting in the "how to trade" material - it's really not useful and Livermore's story is more than enough on its own. Even so, it's very readable, with flashes of excellent, thriller-paced writing, and Livermore had a fascinating and tragic life (and legacy).

great

One of the best books l've read about the Greatest Stock Operator!

A great look into an amazing person!

Pure genius

Excellent reading. The book provides an insight into life and psychology of one of the greatest traders in this world

Bonne surprise que cet ouvrage écrit il y a une dizaine d'année et qui relate de façon biographique la vie de Jesse Livermore, grandeur et décadence d'un génie de la finance. Un must read pour tout ceux qui veulent savoir comment suivre les tendances et couper rapidement ses pertes.

リバモアの伝記というとこの一冊くらいしかないようです。内容は薄味だと感じました。『Reminiscences of a Stock Operator』の方がご本人の思考の躍動をよく伝えています。本書のように時系列で語られてもリバモア氏の人となりは見えてきません。伝記というのはえてしてそういうものかもしれませんが。しかし「株価から音楽が聞こえる」という言葉は印象的でした。きっと真実だったのでしょう。その音楽を聞く為だけに捧げられた一生だったのかもしれません。不思議と言えば不思議ですが、異能人の情熱は所詮は凡人には分からないのです。忘れ難い下りがありました。ある日、リバモア氏が仲間とブリッジをしているとドロシー（二人目の妻）が牛を連れて居間に入ってくる。コーヒーに入れるミルクが薄いといつも愚痴っていたリバモア氏の為に「どうぞ牛からミルクをお取りなって」と。リバモア氏はそれに特に反応せずにブリッジを続ける。著者の意図はどうもドロシーの「可愛いおバカさん」ぶりを示すことらしく、「自分と正反対の人間であるドロシーは自分とまことに相性が合うとリバモアは思った」とこのエピソードを締めくくっています。私は読んでいてひっくり返りました。私にとってこのエピソードが示唆する可能性は次の三つです。１、妻は夫に腹を立てていてイヤがらせをしている。２、天然のフシギちゃん行動だとすると、妻は頭がかなり弱い。３、妻は精神状態が悪く奇矯な行動をしてしまっている。そして著者が書く通り（著者の「解釈」をどこまで信じていいのかは疑問ですが）リバモア氏がこの妻の奇行に眉ひとつ動かさないどころか「微笑ましい」やら感じたのだとしたら、リバモア氏は対人反応がヘンなのです。おそらく生来人間にあまり関心がなかったか、周囲の人間に「内面」などという厄介なものがあるということをあまり実感出来なかったのではなかろうか。株価からは「音楽」を聞く人が。そしてその先に「財産を持ち逃げする三番目の妻」と「参列者のいない葬式」があったと。性格は運命、という言葉に従えば、リバモア氏は悲劇的な人です。