America 1919

By the close of the stock market yesterday afternoon, the price of Sinclair Oil Corporation's American stock had fallen by 3 cents from 48 cents!

Although time had actually only lapsed by a second, many people felt as if a long time had passed.

Then news came from Morgan's side that they had bought the 20,000 shares of Sinclair Oil Corporation that Jesse Livermore had dumped!

Seeing this situation, everyone knew that Harry Sinclair had made his move!

Now all eyes were on Jesse Livermore's response.

Half an hour later, Jesse Livermore dumped another 30,000 shares of Sinclair Oil Corporation!

And then Morgan bought them back!

With this back and forth, everyone became aware that Harry Sinclair had indeed resolved to maintain his company's stock price, and as a result, they also began snatching up shares.

This situation persisted until the market closed in the morning, and someone immediately made a tally that in just one morning, Jesse Livermore had dumped a total of 200,000 shares.

Together with the 130,000 shares from yesterday afternoon, up to this point, Jesse Livermore had in total dumped 330,000 shares, which meant that according to the stock price of Sinclair Oil Corporation before Livermore started selling, Jesse Livermore had already spent over $160,000!

Although this amount wasn't much in relation to the total market capitalization of Sinclair Oil Corporation, the fact that the seller was Jesse Livermore made many people surprised!

Just as Jesse Livermore was about to leave the trading floor to have lunch, an employee from Morgan stopped him.

"Good day, Mr. Livermore, I'm Maciej Buk from Morgan, and our manager would like to invite you to lunch."

Jesse Livermore said with a smile, "I know what Hoyle wants to talk about, but right now it's really not appropriate for us to meet. You can tell Mr. Hoyle that after some time, when all this is over, I will personally come over and have a chat with him!"

Afterward, Jesse Livermore left the place with Helen.

Seeing this situation unfold in the trading floor, others began to speculate.

In their view, Jesse Livermore's refusal at this time essentially meant that the war was still ongoing and for Jesse Livermore, everything was merely beginning.

With this thought, everyone became excited. The last time such a major short-selling war took place was quite a long time ago, during Jesse Livermore's shorting of the St. Paul Railroad Company.

"If there's time, I would like to meet with Mr. Block in Atlantic City!"

Stepping out of the trading hall, Jesse Livermore said seriously, "Everything is within Mr. Block's expectations; he even predicted when Morgan's people would want to meet with me!"

Jesse Livermore was a true stock market genius, but it seemed all his skill points had been allocated to this single area. He was able to predict whether a stock should rise or fall, based on complex data, social events, shifts of power, and the like. Continue reading stories on My Virtual Library Empire

Then, based on his analysis, he would enter the market, either short-selling or buying in.

However, Jesse Livermore was much less proficient in other areas, otherwise, such a prodigy wouldn't have gone through boom and bust three times, ending in bankruptcy protection and death by suicide due to depression.

So it never occurred to him that Morgan's people would want to meet with him at this time.

Previously, when Jesse Livermore was shorting cotton on the futures market, he had already caused Morgan to intervene to save the market.

Yet, he still didn't expect Morgan to show up so soon this time.

Helen laughed and said, "Of course, Donnie has told me that he admires greatly Mr. Livermore's achievements in the stock market. If you could go to Atlantic City, I believe Donnie would be delighted!"

While Helen and Jesse Livermore were looking for a place to have lunch, Maciej Buk also found his manager, Hein Howell.

As a giant on Wall Street, Morgan not only had multiple trading seats in the exchange but also had their own private room.

Here, not only was Hein Howell present but Harry Sinclair was there as well.

Although Harry Sinclair was very confident the night before, Jesse Livermore's reputation was formidable, and the stock market war of the last two days had prevented Sinclair Oil Corporation's stocks from rising as rapidly as before.

Therefore, Harry Sinclair still hoped to meet with Jesse Livermore. If the two could come to some private understanding, all would be resolved!

It was precisely because of this mindset that when he heard from Maciej Buk the reason Jesse Livermore did not come, his expression turned even uglier!

"Harry, don't be anxious yet, I always feel there's something amiss with this situation!" Hein Howell said, sensing Harry Sinclair's thoughts upon seeing his expression.

"What do you mean?"

Harry Sinclair asked Hein Howell, fully aware that when it came to stocks, he was no match for Howell.

Hein Howell graduated from Columbia University and joined Wall Street's lemon brokerage firm where, at that time, the brokerage was an obscure small brokerage house with little business.

But with the addition of Hein Howell, everything began to change. In just the first year, Hein Howell had defeated all of lemon brokerage's stockbrokers, becoming the firm's best-performing stockbroker.