Speculators Quotes

• After spending many years in Wall Street and after making and losing millions of dollars I want to tell you this: It never was my thinking that made the big money for me. It always was my sitting. Got that? My sitting tight!

  Jesse Lauriston Livermore

  Money, Wall, Thinking

  76 Copy quote

• It never was my thinking that made the big money for me. It always was my sitting.

  Jesse Lauriston Livermore

  Thinking, Sitting, Investment

  73 Copy quote

• The market does not beat them. They beat themselves, because though they have brains they cannot sit tight.

  Jesse Lauriston Livermore

  Brain, Doe, Investing

  62 Copy quote

• It never was my thinking that made the big money for me. It always was my sitting. Got that? My sitting tight! It is no trick at all to be right on the market. You always find lots of early bulls in bull markets and early bears in bear markets. I've known many men who were right at exactly the right time, and began buying or selling stocks when prices were at the very level which should show the greatest profit. And their experience invariably matched mine--that is, they made no real money out of it. Men who can both be right and sit tight are uncommon.

  Edwin Lefevre

  Real, Men, Thinking

  58 Copy quote

• Men who can both be right and sit tight are uncommon.

  Jesse Lauriston Livermore

  Men, Uncommon, Bull Markets

  66 Copy quote

• It never was my thinking that made the big money for me. It was always my sitting. Got that? My sitting tight!

  Edwin Lefevre

  Thinking, Sitting, Made

  Edwin Lefèvre (2004). “Reminiscences of a Stock Operator”, p.75, John Wiley & Sons

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• The most realistic distinction between the investor and the speculator is found in their attitude toward stock-market movements. The speculator's primary interest lies in anticipating and profiting from market fluctuations. The investor's primary interest lies in acquiring and holding suitable securities at suitable prices. Market movements are important to him in a practical sense, because they alternately create low price levels at which he would be wise to buy and high price levels at which he certainly should refrain from buying and probably would be wise to sell.

  Benjamin Graham

  Wise, Attitude, Lying

  15 Copy quote

• Speculators are obsessed with predicting: guessing the direction of stock prices. Every morning on cable television, every afternoon on the stock market report, every weekend in Barron's, every week in dozens of market newsletters, and whenever business people get together. In reality, no one knows what the market will do; trying to predict it is a waste of time, and investing based upon that prediction is a purely speculative undertaking.

  Seth Klarman

  Morning, Weekend, Reality

  14 Copy quote

• If a speculator is correct half of the time, he is hitting a good average. Even being right 3 or 4 times out of 10 should yield a person a fortune if he has the sense to cut his losses quickly on the ventures where he is wrong.

  Bernard Baruch

  Cutting, Loss, Yield

  26 Copy quote

• A prudent speculator never argues with the tape. Markets are never wrong, opinions often are.

  Jesse Lauriston Livermore

  Tape, Investing, Prudent

  65 Copy quote

• All a company report and balance sheet can tell you is the past and the present. They cannot tell future.

  Nicolas Darvas

  Future, Past, Balance

  Nicolas Darvas (2006). “How I Made $2 Million in the Stock Market: The Darvas system for stock market profits”, p.98, Harriman House Limited

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• Just remember, without discipline, a clear strategy, and a concise plan, the speculator will fall into all the emotional pitfalls of the market - jump from one stock to another, hold a losing position too long, and cut out of a winner too soon, for no reason other than fear of losing profit. Greed, Fear, Impatience, Ignorance, and Hope will all fight for mental dominance over the speculator. Then, after a few failures and catastrophes the speculator may become demoralised, depressed, despondent, and abandon the market and the chance to make a fortune from what the market has to offer.

  Jesse Lauriston Livermore

  Fall, Ignorance, Cutting

  104 Copy quote

• ... a speculator is one who runs risks of which he is aware and an investor is one who runs risks of which he is unaware.

  John Maynard Keynes

  Running, Risk, Investing

  22 Copy quote

• Our civilized world is nothing but a great masquerade. You encounter knights, parsons, soldiers, doctors, lawyers, priests, philosophers and a thousand more: but they are not what they appear - they are merely masks... Usually, as I say, there is nothing but industrialists, businessmen and speculators concealed behind all these masks.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Knights, Doctors, Soldier

  31 Copy quote

• Remember this: When you are doing nothing, those speculators who feel they must trade day in and day out, are laying the foundation for your next venture. You will reap benefits from their mistakes.

  Jesse Lauriston Livermore

  Mistake, Foundation, Investing

  Jesse Lauriston Livermore (1966). “How to Trade in Stocks: The Livermore Formula for Combining Time Element and Price”

  47 Copy quote

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• A speculator gambles that a stock will go up in price because somebody else will pay even more for it.

  Benjamin Graham

  Investing, Pay, Gamble

  Benjamin Graham (2009). “The Intelligent Investor, Rev. Ed”, p.36, Harper Collins

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• If a lot of money goes into the stock market, it'll push up prices, making money for stock speculators. Then the insiders can decide that it's time to sell out, and the market will plunge.

  Michael Hudson

  Making Money, Plunge, Push Ups

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• When you look at a commodities market you need hedgers and speculators. If you don't have one, you don't have a market. That's how it works.

  T. Boone Pickens

  Needs, Looks, Commodity

  9 Copy quote

• I who have been involved with all styles of painting can assure you that the only things that fluctuate are the waves of fashion which carry the snobs and speculators; the number of true connoisseurs remains more or less the same.

  Pablo Picasso

  Fashion, Numbers, Style

  Pablo Picasso (1972). “Picasso on art: a selection of views”, Viking Adult

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• A speculator is a man who, if he dies at the right time, has a rich widow.

  Christina Stead

  Men, Widows, Rich

  Christina Stead (2012). “House of All Nations”, p.322, Open Road Media

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• The few own the many because they possess the means of livelihood of all ... The country is governed for the richest, for the corporations, the bankers, the land speculators, and for the exploiters of labor. The majority of mankind are working people. So long as their fair demands - the ownership and control of their livelihoods - are set at naught, we can have neither men's rights nor women's rights. The majority of mankind is ground down by industrial oppression in order that the small remnant may live in ease.

  Helen Keller

  Country, Mean, Men

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• Speculators may do no harm as bubbles on a steady stream of enterprise. But the position is serious when enterprise becomes a bubble on a whirlpool of speculation. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill done.

  John Maynard Keynes

  Country, Jobs, Serious

  1936 The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money.

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• Blaming speculators as a response to financial crisis goes back at least to the Greeks. It's almost always the wrong response.

  Lawrence Summers

  Greek, Investing, Blame

  81 Copy quote

• If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Nature, Science, Men

  "Life Without Principle" (1863)

  37 Copy quote

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• If the world market believed that we were serious about energy independence and we were going to utilize all of our own existing resources, the speculators would stop speculating up they start speculating down as we get our own oil out of the ground.

  Herman Cain

  Oil, Independence, Energy

  Herman Cain's remarks at the Republican primary debate at Peace Center in Greenville, South Carolina, www.washingtonpost.com. May 6, 2011.

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