Reminiscences of a Stock Operator

I 1 II 14 III 30 IV 39 V 55 VI 67 VII 80 VIII 87 IX 100 X 117 XI 131 XII 144 XIII 160 XIV 173 XV 190 XVI 199 XVII 215 XVIII 230 XIX 238 XX 245 XXI 257 XXII 273 XXIII 293 XXIV 304

And the funniest thing was that not later than ten days after the Cosmopolitan people tried to double-cross me a New York operator did them out of over seventy thousand dollars....

I looked as if I didn’t believe him, and he kept on buzzing me. I was watching the clock. At 11:15 I said, “All right,” and I began to give him selling orders in various stocks....

I didn’t have much hope, but, of course, I tried to get into the bucket shops again. There were fewer of them and some of them were run by strangers. Those who remembered me wou...

I had been at it over a year, during which I used every device that I could think of to make money trading in those wire houses. I had lived very comfortably, bought an automobi...

I think it was a long step forward in my education when I realized at last that when old Mr. Partridge kept on telling the other customers, “Well, you know this is a bull market...

But he came back at me: “You can’t expect a miracle to save you every time you plunge into that stock. Get out while you’ve still got a chance,” he said. “It’s a crime to be lon...

I studied the situation in 1906 and I thought that the money outlook was particularly serious. Much actual wealth the world over had been destroyed. Everybody must sooner or lat...

On the next day the telegraph wires were down on account of a storm up North or something of the sort. I was in Harding’s office waiting for news. The crowd was chewing the rag...

When the commission houses found out there was not a cent to be had at any price I knew the time had come. I sent brokers into the various crowds. Why, at one time there wasn’t...

As I think I also said before, this describes what I may call my system for placing my bets. It is simple arithmetic to prove that it is a wise thing to have the big bet down on...

The next day was Sunday. But on Monday, Liverpool was due to open up twenty points to be on a parity with the advance in New York. Instead, it came fifty points higher. That mea...

When he began his talks with me about the cotton situation I not only was bearish but I was short of the market. Gradually, as I began to accept his facts and figures, I began t...

I understood at once. He wanted to cover up his brother-in-law’s operations with my reputation as a plunger! It so happened that I had made my biggest killing on the bear side a...

I didn’t go near Williamson & Brown’s. I mean, I purposely kept away from them for six long weeks of steady tape reading. I was afraid that if I went to the office, knowing that...

Fiction writers, clergymen and women are fond of alluding to the floor of the Stock Exchange as a boodlers’ battlefield and to Wall Street’s daily business as a fight. It is qui...

It so happened that I had been getting more and more bearish on the general market. The unusual activity in Borneo Tin drew my attention to it. I didn’t think the time was right...

Everybody knows what happened. We had a big bull movement. I knew the market was going up. General conditions were favourable. Even after stocks had gone up extensively and my p...

It was all very well to play golf but I had been wrong in cotton in selling when I did and in covering when I did. So I simply had to get back on the job and be where I could tr...

As a matter of fact very few of the great corners were profitable to the engineers of them. Both Commodore Vanderbilt’s Harlem corners paid big, but the old chap deserved the mi...

If as the result of my professional work--my manipulation--the price goes up, and if at the highest level there is a good demand for the stock so that I can sell fair-sized bloc...

He was largely instrumental in the organisation and promotion of the Petroleum Products Company. After a more or less successful market début general conditions changed for the...

What they should have done, of course, was to allot the stock in full. That would have made them short to the extent of 25 per cent of the total amount offered for subscription...

He was inwardly accusing me of all sorts of unspeakable crimes. I sure could see a long list of them in his eyes. It made me say to him: “What you really mean to ask me, Wolff,...

Of course, the first to see breakers ahead were the insiders. They became aware of the real condition of the company and they reduced their holdings of the stock. On their selli...