Celebrating The Life Of Jesse Livermore

This week, Benzinga has been looking at the numerous successes and failures of Jesse Livermore after we realized that he was born on July 26, 1877. Livermore, who was also known as the “Boy Plunger” and “Great Bear of Wall Street” had a dubious claim to fame – he made and lost multi-million dollar fortunes on numerous occasions. Livermore was born in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts and he started his trading career when he was 14, posting stock quotes for the Boston brokerage Paine Webber. His first marriage ended when, after going broke, he asked his then-wife to pawn her jewelry collection. He was married a further two times. Learning as he worked, he had earned profits of $1000 by the age of 15 and soon moved to New York to trade in legitimate markets. It's the amount of money that Livermore gained and lost that earned him his notoriety though. After the 1907 market crash, he was worth $3 million. After the 1929 crash, he was worth $100 million. He lost both fortunes. He wrote a book, “How to Trade in Stocks”, and he openly admitted that his failure to stick to his own rules led to him losing so much money. Suffering from depression, Livermore shot and killed himself in November 1940. He leaves behind some valuable lessons in what to do and certainly what not to do.