Edwin Lefèvre

Edwin Lefèvre (1871–1943) was an American journalist, writer, and diplomat most remembered today for his writings about Wall Street.

Quotes

Reminiscences of a Stock Operator (1923)

• A battle goes on in the stock market and the tape is your telescope. You can depend upon it seven out of ten cases.
  • Chapter I, p. 2

• A stock operator has to fight a lot of expensive enemies within himself.
  • Chapter II, p. 14

• The game taught me the game.
  • Chapter III, p. 29

• There is nothing like losing all you have in the world for teaching you what not to do. And when you know what not to do in order not to lose money, you begin to learn what to do in order to win. Did you get that? You begin to learn!
  • Chapter IV, p. 51

• One of the most helpful things that any body can learn is to give up trying to catch the last eighth - or the first. These two are the most expensive eighths in the world.
  • Chapter V, p. 61

• "the public never is independently responsive to news."
  • Chapter VI, p. 69

• When it comes to selling stocks, it is plain that nobody can sell unless somebody wants those stocks.
  If you operate on a large scale you will have to bear that in mind all the time.
  • Chapter VII, p. 81

• If a man didn't make mistakes he'd own the world in a month.
  But if he didn't profit by his mistakes he wouldn't own a blessed thing.
  • Chapter VIII, p. 89

• And for a sucker play a man gets sucker pay; for the paymaster is on the job and never losses the pay envelope that is coming to you.
  • Chapter IX, p. 103

• " I am carrying so much cotton that I can't sleep thinking about it. It is wearing me out. What can I do?"
  " Sell down to the sleeping point," answered the friend.
  • Chapter X, p. 112

• The speculator is not an investor.
  • Chapter X, p. 114

• That is one trouble about trading on a large scale.
  You cannot sneak out as you can when you pike along.
  • Chapter XI, p. 134

• In fact, of all hoodoos in Wall Street I think the resolve to induce the stock market to act as a fairy godmother is the busiest and most persistent.
  • Chapter XII, p. 149

• To subordinate my judgment to his desires was the undoing of me.
  • Chapter XIII, p. 159

• Nowhere does history indulge in repetitions so often or so uniformly as in Wall Street.
  • Chapter XIV, p. 172

• It didn't require a Sherlock Holmes to size up the situation.
  • Chapter XV, p. 182

• As a matter of fact I trade in accordance to my means and always leave myself an ample margin of safety.
  • Chapter XV, p. 183

• As I have said a thousand times, no manipulation can put stocks down and keep them down.
  • Chapter XV, p. 186

• TIPS! How people want tips! They crave not only to get them but to give them.
  • Chapter XVI, p. 188

• When the man who ought to want a stock doesn't want it, why should I want it?
  • Chapter XVII, p. 211

• History repeats itself all the time on Wall Street.
  • Chapter XVIII, p. 217

• People who look for easy money invariably pay for the privilege of proving conclusively that it cannot be found on this sordid earth.
  • Chapter XIX, p. 226

• There is no question that advertising is an art, and manipulation is the art of advertising through the medium of the tape.
  • Chapter XX, p. 236

• When you find that it fails to respond adequately to your buying you don't need any better tip to sell.
  • Chapter XXI, p. 249

• The big money in booms is always made first by the public - on paper.
  And it remains on paper.
  • Chapter XXI, P. 257

• " Oh, Mr. Wolff, what do you think of Balzac? "
  Josh politely ceased to masticate, swallowed and answered,
  " I never trade them Curb stocks! "
  • Chapter XXII, p. 265 (See also: New York Curb Exchange)

• The speculators deadly enemies are: Ignorance, greed, fear and hope. All the statute books in the world and all the rules of all the Exchanges on earth cannot eliminate these from the human animal.
  • Chapter XXIII, p. 278

• The public always wants to be told.
  • Chapter XXIV, p. 287