Hidden Forces Opposed to the Speculator.
There are perhaps very few speculators of the haphazard type who take the trouble to find out the extent and power of the hidden forces that are arrayed against them in the markets. Every stock, it should be remembered, has either a small or large market to itself. In some stocks it is possible any time of the day to deal at ⅟₁₆ price,[35] while in others there may be a difference of 1, 2, 3, or even 5 per cent. under certain circumstances, between the buying and the selling price. A speculator operating in a stock in which he can always deal at a close price is able to undo his bargain with only a trifling loss probably, if he finds out at once that he has operated under some misapprehension; but if he has bought a stock the purchase price of which is say 35, and if he wants to sell he can only get 34, he has incurred a loss of 1 per cent., besides the commission, before he can cancel the bargain. This belongs obviously to the alphabet of the business, but the haphazard speculator seldom learns his alphabet until the use of it is no longer of any value.
The “Turn.”
A broker, it may be said, should warn his client before putting him into a stock the price of which is wide; but unfortunately such warnings do not increase the number of commissions, and, apart from that, if a speculator does not take the trouble to inform himself accurately upon such a point, placing no reliance upon the advice of any one, he deserves to lose his money. Some markets are so small that a speculator once in, is what is called “roasted” before he is let out again. A particular man very often is the only dealer in the market in a certain stock of which perhaps the supply is also very limited. Under such circumstances a haphazard speculator who may chance to have observed some rather violent fluctuations thinks there is a good opportunity to make some money, and he sells a little bear of a couple of thousand pounds nominal of stock. The round sum, and the channel through which the sale comes, helps the jobber to read the operation. The decoy-duck in the shape of the fluctuations in price, lures two or three more sportsmen on to the dangerous ground, and when they want to get out the price is put up against them, and they are quietly mulcted of £50 each, without a chance of getting even a sight of their enemy, or any value for their money but experience.
The Danger of Taking Advice.
A speculator who consults a not over-scrupulous broker as to the best thing to buy for the rise, runs the risk of taking some stock off the broker’s hands that he is desirous to get rid of. It is far better that a broker should not be exposed to such a temptation, and a speculator will do well to make it one of his maxims to put no trust in any one when he is engaged in a business in which it is the object of everybody with whom he comes in contact to make something out of him.
A Disinterested Opinion.
Supposing a broker is not directly interested in any particular stock when a client who is in doubt what to do consults him; it does not then follow that the client can depend upon getting absolutely disinterested opinions. The broker may have just put some other clients into a certain stock, and with a view to his own advantage, by helping to make money for them, he will lean probably to some extent in the direction of advising others to purchase the same stock.
All the Eggs in one Basket.