Page 63 - Morgan Housel - The Psychology of Money_ Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness-Harriman House Limited (2020)

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And that, as far as we know, was the end of Abraham Germansky.

Here we have a contrast.

The October 1929 crash made Jesse Livermore one of the richest men in the
world. It ruined Abraham Germansky, perhaps taking his life.

But fast-forward four years and the stories cross paths again.

After his 1929 blowout Livermore, overflowing with confidence, made
larger and larger bets. He wound up far over his head, in increasing amounts
of debt, and eventually lost everything in the stock market.

Broke and ashamed, he disappeared for two days in 1933. His wife set out to
find him. “Jesse L. Livermore, the stock market operator, of 1100 Park
Avenue missing and has not been seen since 3pm yesterday,” The New York

Times wrote in 1933.

He returned, but his path was set. Livermore eventually took his own life.

The timing was different, but Germansky and Livermore shared a character

trait: They were both very good at getting wealthy, and equally bad at
staying wealthy.

Even if “wealthy” is not a word you’d apply to yourself, the lessons from
that observation apply to everyone, at all income levels.

Getting money is one thing.

Keeping it is another.

If I had to summarize money success in a single word it would be “survival.”

As we’ll see in chapter 6, 40% of companies successful enough to become
publicly traded lost effectively all of their value over time. The Forbes 400