Edwin Lefèvre (1871–1943) was an American journalist, writer, and diplomat most noted for his writings on Wall Street business.
The game taught me the game.
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.
When you find that it fails to respond adequately to your buying you don't need any better tip to sell.
When the man who ought to want a stock doesn't want it, why should I want it?
A battle goes on in the stock market and the tape is your telescope. You can depend upon it seven out of ten cases.
That is one trouble about trading on a large scale. You cannot sneak out as you can when you pike along.
Being broke is a very efficient educational agency.
It never was my thinking that made the big money for me. It was always my sitting. Got that? My sitting tight!
As a matter of fact I trade in accordance to my means and always leave myself an ample margin of safety.
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.
No man can always have adequate reasons for buying or selling stocks daily - or sufficient knowledge to make his play an intelligent play.
If a stock doesn’t act right don’t touch it; because, being unable to tell precisely what is wrong, you cannot tell which way it is going. No diagnosis, no prognosis. No prognosis, no profit.
There is no question that advertising is an art, and manipulation is the art of advertising through the medium of the tape.
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.
The speculator is not an investor.
The principles of successful stock speculation are based on the supposition that people will continue in the future to make the mistakes that they have made in the past.
As I have said a thousand times, no manipulation can put stocks down and keep them down.
The big money in booms is always made first by the public - on paper. And it remains on paper.
A stock operator has to fight a lot of expensive enemies within himself.
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.