Jesse Livermore was a legendary stock trader. He was very successful in stock trading.

Jesse Livermore began his working life at the age of 14, as a quotation board boy in a stockbroker's office. He was, he believed, particularly suited to the job because of his strong abilities in mental arithmetic and number memorization. Stock prices came into the stockbroker's offices on a ticker tape, a continuous strip of paper bringing the prices from Wall Street. It was Livermore's job to take the prices from the tape and write them on the board for the stockbroker's customers to see.

As time passed he began to realise he could discern patterns, what we today call as technical analysis, from the numbers that flowed each day from the tape. He did a paper test on the basis of what he learned by predicting the direction that different stock prices would take. He studied the fluctuation in the price of sugar stock on a day and saw that the stock pattern of behaviour or trend was as before and it broke eight or ten points. He would jot down the stock price on Monday and remembering the past performances would write down what it ought to be on Tuesday or Wednesday. Later he would check up with the actual transcription from the tape. He found that most of his predictions transpired to be correct.

Little Nuggets from Jesse-Livermore – who was a legendary trader. To learn how to trade stocks read these nuggets and his book. Sign up for a free copy of Jesse Livermore's "Reminescenses of a stock operator" e-book.

• "The game of speculation is the most uniformly fascinating game in the world. But it is not a game for the stupid, the mentally lazy, the man of inferior emotional balance, or for the get-rich-quick adventurer. They will die poor."
• "...the fruits of your success will be in direct ratio to the honesty and sincerity of your own effort in keeping your own records, doing your own thinking, and reaching your own conclusions."
• "There is nothing new in Wall Street. There can't be because speculation is as old as the hills. Whatever happens in the stock market today has happened before and will happen again."
• "There are times when money can be made investing and speculating in stocks, but money cannot consistently be made trading every day or every week during the year. Only the foolhardy will try it. It just is not in the cards and cannot be done."
• "The point is not so much to buy as cheap as possible or go short at top price, but to buy or sell at the right time."
• "I am tired of hearing the public and papers blame Wall Street for parting fools from their money... It's the successful business man who is the biggest sucker of the lot. He has made a fortune in his own line. How? By being on the job for years; by learning all there was to know about it; by taking reasonable chances; by utilizing his knowledge and experience to anticipate probabilities. He wants to increase that fortune at a faster rate and with less effort."
• "It took me five years to learn to play the game intelligently enough to make big money when I was right."
• "Speculation is far too exciting. Most people who speculate hound the brokerage offices... the ticker is always on their minds. They are so engrossed with the minor ups and downs, they miss the big movements."