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Jesse Livermore: How to Trade in Stocks (1940 Ed. E-book)

If you've been around markets for any length of time, you've probably heard of 20th century supertrader, Jesse Livermore. Today we're highlighting his rare 1940 work, How to Trade in Stocks (ebook, pdf).

But first, a brief overview of Livermore's life and trading career (bio from Jesse Livermore's Wikipedia entry).

Jesse Livermore stock trader"During his lifetime, Livermore gained and lost several multi-million dollar fortunes. Most notably, he was worth $3 million and $100 million after the 1907 and 1929 market crashes, respectively. He subsequently lost both fortunes. Apart from his success as a securities speculator, Livermore left traders a working philosophy for trading securities that emphasizes increasing the size of one's position as it goes in the right direction and cutting losses quickly.
Ironically, Livermore sometimes did not follow his rules strictly. He claimed that lack of adherence to his own rules was the main reason for his losses after making his 1907 and 1929 fortunes.

The popular book Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, by Edwin Lefevre, reflects many of those lessons. Livermore himself wrote a less widely read book, "How to trade in stocks; the Livermore formula for combining time element and price". It was published in 1940, the same year he committed suicide"


Livermore started writing How to Trade in Stocks in 1939, at the urging of his son, Jesse Jr. For Jesse, the project provided some respite from a decade filled with personal depression and financial difficulties. Sadly, Livermore took his own life in late 1940, eight months after the book was published.

I first heard about Livermore's last book while browsing through some related trading books at Amazon.com. It seems author Richard Smitten used Livermore's 1940 work as the basis for a reworked and updated 2001 edition that left some readers cold.

Thankfully, some of the reviewers at Amazon pointed out that the hard-to-find original 1940 edition of How to Trade in Stocks was available online in PDF format. Click the title link to download this valuable scan of Livermore's book and read at your pleasure.

Jesse Livermore trading book How to Trade in Stocks 1940 pdf ebook


I'm excited to read through these pages and study Livermore's thoughts and trading wisdom. I hope you enjoy this rare look at what some consider to be a nearly-forgotten trading classic.

Related posts:

Why do traders still quote Jesse Livermore?  

Jesse Livermore on trading (Quotes)

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