《股票作手回忆录·第十四章·游戏永不变·人性永不变》第2节
The trouble was not that I had lost my grip but that during those four wretched years the opportunities for making money simply didn’t exist. Still I plugged along, trying to make a stake and succeeding only in increasing my indebtedness. After I ceased trading on my own hook because I wouldn’t owe my friends any more money I made a living handling accounts for people who believed I knew the game well enough to beat it even in a dull market. For my services I received a percentage of the profits--when there were any. That is how I lived. Well, say that is how I sustained life. Of course, I didn’t always lose, but I never made enough to allow me materially to reduce what I owed. Finally, as things got worse, I felt the beginnings of discouragement for the first time in my life. Everything seemed to have gone wrong with me. I did not go about bewailing the descent from millions and yachts to debts and the simple life. I didn’t enjoy the situation, but I did not fill up with self-pity. I did not propose to wait patiently for time and Providence to bring about the cessation of my discomforts. I therefore studied my problem. It was plain that the only way out of my troubles was by making money. To make money I needed merely to trade successfully. I had so traded before and I must do so once more. More than once in the past I had run up a shoestring into hundreds of thousands. Sooner or later the market would offer me an opportunity.
注释摘要
这段文字描绘的是利弗莫尔职业生涯中最漫长、最煎熬的一段低谷期，它的历史背景大约是1911年至1914年之间。这是一个被当时的金融作家称作“长期无钱可赚的四年”的时期，市场陷入了死气沉沉的窄幅盘整，成交量极低。对于利弗莫尔这样依赖价格剧烈波动来捕捉大行情的投机者来说，这种市场环境是致命的。书中的主角所说的“抓不住机会”，并不是他眼光不行了，而是那种能让他施展…