Boy Plunger is the first full-length biography of the legendary share trader - Jesse Livermore, the man who dominated Wall Street in the twenties and thirties. To this day Livermore remains the most successful stock and commodities trader in the history of the stock market. Livermore became famous in the summer of 1929 when most people believed that the stock market would continue to rise forever. But he, almost alone, did not. Wall Street was enjoying an eight-year winning run that had seen the Dow Jones index increase 500 per cent from the start of the decade - an unprecedented rise. The Dow peaked at 381 on 3rd September and later that day the most respected economist of the era, Irving Fisher, declared that the rise was "permanent". Livermore vigorously disagreed and started a process that would see him sell $450 million of shares short inside a four week period. Two weeks later, the market began falling and rising again on successive days for no apparent reason. This situation endured for a month. Then came, as he had forecast, the three 'black' days: On Black Thursday 24th October, the Dow fell 11% at the opening bell, prompting chaos on the markets. The fall was stalled when leading financiers of the day clubbed together to buy huge quantities of shares. But it was short-lived succour and, over that weekend, blanket negative newspaper commentary caused the second of the 'black' days on Black Monday 28th October when the market dropped another 13%. The third 'black' day, Black Tuesday 29th October, saw the market drop a further 12%. When the dust had settled, in the aftermath of the 24th to the 29th October, Wall Street had lost $30 billion. Only much later did it become known that the man who had sold short $450 million of shares was Jesse Livermore. Livermore made nearly $100 million in personal profits and overnight became one of the richest men in the world. It remains, adjusted for inflation, the most money ever made by any individual in a period of seven days. Boy Plunger is the story of that man.
Author Biography
Boy Plunger is Tom Rubython's first biography of a financier. He wanted to make sure that he wrote a complete biography that covered every facet of the genius share trader's life as well as all of his colourful personal life. Rubython is a former magazine and newspaper editor spanning the worlds of sport and business. For over 30 years he worked in business magazines editing, amongst others, BusinessAge, EuroBusiness and Spectator Business. Then he moved to sport, editing F1 Magazine, BusinessF1 and SportsPro before becoming a full-time biography writer. He wrote his first book in 1995, and there have been more than 20 since. He is best known for his motor racing biographies including Life of Senna, which has sold more than 250,000 copies across the world, and Shunt, the story of James Hunt, which has sold more than 70,000 copies. He also wrote And God Created Burton, the story of the life of Richard Burton, and most recently White Music, the biography of the maestro, Barry White. Rubython specialises in non-fiction storytelling and is passionate and methodical about the process of writing and researching the definitive biography. He starts with a determination to tell the full story of a person's life, emphasising what is important and de-emphasising what is not, the two skills he believes are the crucial tools of any biographer.
