Jesse Livermore was a U.S. commodities trader, trader, speculator, and author who made great wealth speculating in gold, silver, copper and other commodities during the early 1900s.
He was born in Livermore, California on October 9, 1877. His father died when he was young and his mother moved the family to San Francisco where he attended school. He got his start in the business world while he was still in school working for the brokerage firm of Haskin & Brother As a student at Stanford University he joined Piatt Andrew & Co., a firm that dealt in stock futures contracts
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He graduated in 1903 with a degree in mining engineering and set out to work for Edward H. Harriman's Union Pacific Railroad Company which owned gold mines across the American west. He worked his way up to head of the metals department by 1907 where he rose to senior partner of the company.
By 1910 he had become one of Harriman's closest confidants and had become wealthy through his investment in mining stocks. He retired from the company in 1918 but continued to trade for several companies until 1931 when he became ill with tuberculosis and gave up his business career to spend his remaining years writing memoirs about his experiences as a trader until he died on January 19, 1936 at age 65.
Livermore began trading gold bullion for William Rockefeller (the youngest son of John Drexel Biddle) beginning in 1898 at age 19. Together they managed to make $150 million over a 20-year period which is equivalent to an average annual return of 16%.
They were a pair of very sharp traders although they would not have been able to do any real damage with their sharp trades had it not been for their very close relationship which was founded upon trust and mutual respect as well as a shared love of playing poker as well as trading sharp trades which they would bet big on as well as small on as they traded their way up from small stakes right up to large stakes all the while making money hand over fist from their good fortune as well as their keen instincts which they honed through years of playing poker, trading, and investing together before they came up with their way of making big money trading very small stakes even though they were very sharp traders.
Livermore wrote several books about his trading experiences including "Gold: Its Possibilities and Abuses" published in 1914 by Macmillian Company that sold over 10 million copies worldwide becoming one of the
