Speculation Will Never Disappear

I took a break from the various Market Wizards series books to finish up Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, by Edwin Lefevre. It is believed that this book is a fictionalized account of the stock trading life of Jesse Livermore. Livermore was an amazing "stock operator", who correctly called quite a few market crashes, and made and lost several multi-million dollar fortunes throughout his life.

Here is a great quote towards the end of the book, where the "Larry Livingston" protagonist character begins to criticize the practice of stock tips, the source of which is often institutional manipulation:

"Speculation in stocks will never disappear. It isn't desirable that it should. It cannot be checked by warnings as to its dangers. You cannot prevent people from guessing wrong no matter how able or how experienced they may be. Carefully laid plans will miscarry because the unexpected and even the unexpectable will happen. Disaster may come from a convulsion of nature or from the weather, from your own greed or from some man's vanity; from fear or from uncontrolled hope. But apart from what one might call his natural foes, a speculator in stocks has to contend with certain practices or abuses that are indefensible morally as well as comercially." - page 285