1) In Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, Edwin Lefevre chronicles how Jesse Livermore waited watchfully for an opportunity to short the stock market after multiple failed attempts. He nearly went broke. “I simply had to be sure, the next time I tried.”
2) "Well, sir, one fine morning I came downtown feeling cocksure once more. There wasn’t any doubt this time. I had read an advertisement in the financial pages of all the newspapers that was the high sign I hadn’t had the sense to wait for before plunging..."
3) "The announcement of a new issue of stock by the Northern Pacific and Great Northern roads. The payments were to be made on the installment plan for the convenience of the stockholders. This consideration was something new in Wall Street. It struck me as more than ominous."
4) "As soon as I got to the office I told Ed Harding, “The time to sell is right now. This is when I should have begun. Just look at that ad, will you?"
5) "That ad is a signed confession on the part of the bankers. What they fear is what I hope. This is a sign for us to get aboard the bear wagon. It is all we needed. If I had ten million dollars I’d stake every cent of it this minute.”
6) "A few days later St. Paul came out with an announcement of an issue of its own… the date of payment was set ahead of Great Northern and Northern Pacific. St. Paul was trying to beat the two other railroads to what little money there was floating around in Wall Street."
7) "The St. Paul’s bankers quite obviously feared that there wasn’t enough for all three and they were not saying, “After you, my dear Alphonse!”"
8) "If money already was that scarce… and the railroads needed it desperately. What was the answer? Sell ’em! Of course!"
9) "The public with their eyes fixed on the stock market, saw little that week. The wise stock operators saw much that year. That was the difference. In February 1907, I cleaned up. Great Northern preferred had gone down sixty or seventy points, and other stocks in proportion."
10) History repeats itself on a sufficiently long enough timeline. Today’s ride-sharing companies have more parallels to railroads than we might like.
