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Preface - Buy Low, Sell High
Buy Low, Sell High. Buy low, sell high is the surest way to make money in the stock market, and any trading activity is clear and simple, buy the asset low and sell it higher.
As with so many things in life, it is easier said than done.
US-Industrial Titan, J.P. Morgan who shaped Wall Street, coined the term Buy Low, Sell High
The term buy low, sell high was coined by John Pierpont Morgan Sr., who allegedly preferred to go by his middle name, Pierpont, is better known today, as J.P. Morgan.
J.P. Morgan was born on April 17, 1837 in . As an J.P. Morgan was physically large with massive shoulders, piercing eyes, and a purple nose covered with pits, nodules, fissures, lobulations. Morgan suffered from rosacea and his nose deformity was caused by a disease called . Morgan smoked cigars, including Havanas prodigiously; he was vain, hating publicity and requiring photographs of himself being retouched to obscure his nose condition. Morgan was said to have a physical effect on those in his presence, with one man describing an interaction with Morgan "as if a gale had blown through the house.”
J.P. Morgan was the son of father (1813–1890), a dry goods wholesaler, himself born of the influential Morgan family, and Juliet Pierpont (1816–1884), daughter of the poet . J.P. Morgan’s uncle was , who composed the famous Christmas song .
J.P. Morgan was one of the single most influential human beings on twentieth century global finance and industry. Morgan had an extensive education in Europe and upon completion in 1857, worked in a series of banks, largely merchant banks, including servicing his own father’s accounts.
J.P. Morgan leveraged his family wealth and connections to take advantage of large market swings
Near the start of the American Civil War, J.P. Morgan opened his one-room brokerage at 53 Exchange Place, New York, New York, initially primarily serving his father’s accounts. Morgan was was able to work his own business by paying a substitute $300 to serve in his place in the war.
After the turned the war in the Union's favor. J.P. Morgan made large profits in the purchase and sale of Union bonds and generated their first massive customer through a large deposit from after Corcoran sold his U.S. holdings out of sympathy for the Confederate cause. In October 1863, J.P. Morgan and Edward B. Ketchum transferred $1.15 million, equivalent to $22.4 million in 2023, in gold to England. The transfer allegedly caused a a price spike in gold that Morgan and Ketchum took advantage of to sell gold while the price was high. Critics and historians have considered the transaction a speculative effort to corner & manipulate the American gold market.
Driven by the the , caused by a crash in wheat prices and an oversupply of silver that led to deep declines in stock market prices, loss of jobs and economic depression, by 1895, demands for specie in exchange for treasury notes, the nearly depleted its gold reserves. Never one to let a good panic go to waste, J.P. Morgan and the famed the family to sold 3.5 million ounces of gold directly to the U.S. Treasury in exchange for a 30-year bond issue.
From 1890 to 1913, 42 major corporations were organized or their securities were , in whole or part, by J.P. Morgan and Company. Those included many corporations that were still in existence as of the date of this writing, mid-2025: Aetna Insurance, AT&T telecom, American Bridge, DuPont, General Electric, General Motors, US Steel (acquired by Nippon in early 2025), Western Union.
Despite his enormous wealth and great power, as all men, except those currently living, J.P. Morgan died. He passed away on March 31, 1913, in his sleep at the Grand Hotel Plaza in Rome, Italy.
Some lessons from J.P. Morgan it ends the same way for everyone, if you’re not born to wealth, you can invest in the same things wealthy people do, never let a good panic go to waste, invest for the long term
So, what does this brief biography of J.P. Morgan teach investors who are looking to learn from his example.
The obvious is that you can’t take it with you. So, balance your investments with the rest of your life.
The next lesson might be, be born to a wealthy family, leverage your nepotism, and then use your wealth to manipulate markets. Ok, that probably doesn’t work for most readers. So, a more practical lesson, which is well-known and widely practiced is invest with business titans.
A less obvious lesson might be counterintuitive from the life of J.P. Morgan is invest for the long term, and focus on the buy, not the sell. For investors who did and could hold those companies that went public through J.P. Morgan’s underwriting services, the rewards were massive. It would be interesting to know if any current investors still hold the original investment as heirs of the original purchasers.
Never let a good panic go to waste.
Historically, it is a good time to buy, when others are selling. The late twentieth century’s and early twenty-first century’s greatest investor, Warren Buffet, re-invented J.P. Morgan’s phrase buy low, sell high as when others are greedy you should be fearful, and when others are fearful you should be greedy.
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