Customer Reviews

Jesse Livermore: Speculator King

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I got this book from a library because I have other books on Livermore (Reminiscences, How to Trade ..., Amazing Life ...), and having read the poor reviews of this book on Amazon, I even felt curious to learn about the negative sides of the famed trader,if only to have balanced view of him. But what utter nonsense this book is! Let me quote just a few phrases from the book, because just about every sentence in the book is a demeaning invective at the great speculator. (I can feel the intense hatred of Livermore on just about every sentence. I wonder what Livermore ever did to Sarnoff.) Judge for yourself ...

"Luckily for Livermore, he just happened to be right." (p. 40) "Livermore-a regular loser with his own money ...." (p. 51) "Livermore's station in Wall Street deteriorated quickly to that of a stock market prostitute." (p. 53) "For each word was a building-block in the construction of the phoniest legend (meaning Livermore) ever built and foisted upon devotees of the stock market game." (p. 59) "For Jesse, gifted with the cunning of an alley-cat ..." (p. 63) " ..when Livermore found himselfs badly squeezed by the bulls, he resorted to a stock market coward's strategem ..." (p. 66) "Basically, his forecasting prowess depended upon a black cat." (p. 101) "Perhaps Jesse Livermore now wanted to show the world that he was as much a man as Charley Barney ... who bravely shot himself to death." (p. 112) "But Livermore, who had left school at age fourteen, cared little for theories or educational exercises." (p. 118)

There are some other truly disgusting sentences that I cannot repeat on this public forum. I searched Sarnoff's name on Amazon to see if he ever wrote any other books, but found none else. Maybe he couldn't find any publisher after demonstrating his literary talent on this volume. Sarfnoff makes a clever comment about J.L having no formal education beyond age fourteen. Well, the author writes like he dropped out of kindergarten. I'm surprised that he found any publisher for this level of writing. I have heard and agreed before that there is no such thing as a bad book, and I've agreed all my life. But this is a bad book, the only I ever found.

The only interesting comment Sarnoff made was that the Reminiscences of a Stock Operator was really penned by Livermore, with editorial assitance of Lefvre. Sarnoff gains no creditility on anything with me, but if this were true, I'm doubly impressed with the Great Bear, who left for generations of traders one of the finest investment classics ever written on the markets, along with the other treasured classic, "How to Trade in Stocks", a book which Sarnoff trashes in this reviewed volume.

Mind-boggling, total trash. I wasted a few hours of my life reading this book. Don't make that mistake. Get a refund if you paid for it.

Sarnoff's book is pure tripe. The anger & spite seethes throughout. It's hard to take the author serious when it's so appearant he has some ax to grind.

Sarnoff comes across as a Wall Street sucker who's swallowed alot of hooks. His anger & resentment towards Livermore seems more like a loser with a vendetta, than an author with a biography to tell.

Life's short - There's better books to read than this.

This is one of the most poorly written books I have ever read. Do not expect the thorough examination of Jesse Livermore you would get from a normal biography - here you will only find occasional snapshots of his life. Such a dearth of information! I decided that it wasn't worth keeping on my trading shelf and threw it out.

Sarnoff does not like Jesse Livermore and it shows in the book. He does very little research and the resulting picture is two dimensional and very thin.

Unfortunately, since there is so little material about Mr. Livermore, you may want to read it if you have already read "Reminiscences of a Stock Operator" and "How to Trade in Stocks."

I also hear Trader's Press is coming out with a new biography of him this month.

As others have noted, I wonder what private feud lies behind Sarnoff's book. Among many strange things why wait 27 years after the subject of your bile has died before publishing this vitriolic attack? Maybe there were legal problems or he couldn't find a publisher, who knows?

With regard to the point about Livermore going bust 3 times it depends on how much you think the stock market works like gambling, but a lot of the worlds greatest poker players have gone broke, often more than once. It doesn't mean that they were charlatans or hype merchants though.

If Livermore really did leave a suicide note claiming that his life had been a total failure then what are we supposed to read into that? Would he liked to have been a better person? Did he think he should have used his money for some higher purpose than simply to make even more money? it's not the same thing as claiming that the man's life had been a total sham.

I gave the book 2 stars only because of the personal information that had never appeared anywhere else, but really this is a strangely shoddy and utterly biased account of Livermore.

Just an example which proved that Sarnoff didn't know his topic a thing before he commented on it. Regarding "The Livermore Key" in Livermore's book "How to trade in stocks", the numbers in the price table, Sarnoff said "He (Livermore) used blue ink for the upward movements, and red ink for the downward". In fact, Livermore use BLACK ink for upward trend, and red ink for downward trend. Blue ink (pencil) was used for Rally or Reaction which can be upward or downward. I don't think Sarnoff understood the formula Livermore talked about.

"Markets are never wrong; opinions are." ...Jesse L. Livermore.

Described as a 'Master Market Manipulator', 'Boy Plunger' and 'the Great Bear'.

Jesse L. Livermore's true story is re-created in this book by Paul Sarnoff, an excellent starting point for traders in their 'journey' to find the Truth.

Although lacking in technical analysis, or mathematical tools, this book provides a rare insight into the thoughts of a professional trader.

Have pencil ready to underline some classic ideas from Jesse Livermore, like one of his rules, "Don't make the same error twice." One of Aristotle's doctrines is that learning "comes from suffering"......Livermore was certainly Aristotelian.

Although not as informative as Edwin Lefevre's fictionalized biography of Jesse Livermore, this book is still mandatory reading for traders starting out.

Livermore firmly espouses the maxim "If there is any easy money lying around in Wall Street, no one is going to put it into your pocket".

Included is a basic chart of a Livermore rally and trend with price levels of U.S.Steel and Bethlehem Steel from 1938, and some pictures in the back.

Worth a read. END

This book offered a striking contrast to the more familiar picture as written about in LeFevre's Reminiscences.

Here, "J.L." is depicted as one that does little to no research, has the morals of a jackrabbit and was utterly no match for the great speculator Arthur Cutten.

Altogether, the late Jesse Livermore is represented in a less than flattering exposition. We learn some of the following juicy tidbits: he walked out on wife #1 because she wouldn't let him hock her jewels; he loved the limelight and loved to see his name in the newspaper; he left town in the winter and in the summer to escape temperature extremes. The books also states that he only cared about himself; and at the end, when he shot himself he left a long rambling note with repeated reference to "my life has been a total failure."

This is the worst book I've ever read. There's lots of misleading information in it. The copy I bought is 1985 hard cover. I will throw it into recycle bin. I want to make sure that nobody will waste his/her time on this copy any more.The Livermore Market Key is not based on Dow Theory as the book described. In my humble opinion, Mr. Jesse Livermore's trading system is still the best in the world.

I bought this for my Dad upon a recommendation and he really enjoyed it. I didn't read it myself but I'm sure it will cross my path eventually.