Reluctant to admit such a costly blunder in judgment, determined not to be surpassed by his fellow-traders, and flushed with the victory of his recent exploit, when Union Pacific was selling at about $215 this “sold out bull” put in an unlimited order to buy five thousand shares. When his broker on the floor of the exchange began bidding for this amount of stock the crowd instantly surmised that some big operator was being “squeezed” on the short side, and before the purchase was completed the price had jumped to $219, the highest point it ever reached. After steadying itself for a while at around this figure it took a downward plunge, and a few weeks later our trader who had retired from the market with upwards of $100,000 profit, closed out the last hundred shares, saving a little less than the $1500 he originally put up as margin. His escape from utter financial ruin was largely due to the insistent advice of his broker that he should steadily lighten his load on the way down, rather than try to protect the whole lot by putting up additional margin.
The man who made this play in Union Pacific was a college graduate, and a veteran trader, with twenty years of hard-bought experience and a good family name behind him. While his experience, together with the advice of his broker, saved him from a heavy loss it might easily be supposed that the former alone would have prevented him from falling into the common error of novices. From which it may be observed that in stock speculation, as in other pursuits, wisdom and the ability to master one’s own impulses are sometimes late in arriving at full maturity. Indeed a broker who for upwards of thirty years has held a position of outstanding prominence on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange—a man who often handles a hundred thousand shares or more in a single day—once admitted to me that while he generally made money for clients who entrusted him with optional orders, yet he regularly lost more than half his enormous commissions trading on his own account. Which calls to mind a wise saying of the old Greek philosopher Heraclitus, five hundred years B.C.—“Many men have no wisdom regarding those things with which they come in contact; nor do they learn by experience.”
The man who made the splurge in Lake Copper was a daring young Lochinvar who came out of the West, with only a moderate sum of money, but an ample store of ambition; and although enjoying a large practice in an honorable profession, he occasionally took what he called a “flyer” in the market. For some years he was kept pretty busy clearing up the results of his miscalculations in this adventure, which I imagine was his last “flyer.” I have remarked that “experience” might reasonably have been counted upon to safeguard the man in the Union Pacific deal against the error of over-acquisitiveness; and seeing it did not, it would seem that the very inexperience of our other trader should have made him less daring. From which we may conclude that in stock trading, all speculators, whether experienced or inexperienced, are subject to those inscrutable laws of psychology which Nature herself seems to have designed for the discomfiture of those who play at the wheel of Fortune.
THEY ALL RESOLVE, BUT THEY ALL GO BACK
One often hears the stock trader’s sad lament,—“If I ever get even, I’ll get out and stay out!” But I never knew one of this class who ever got “out even” and I never heard of one who stayed out if he did get out even. If they get out, leaving a dollar in, they go back after it; if they get out a few dollars ahead, they go back for more; in any case they all go back. They wouldn’t be content to stay out of the market any more than a little shorn lamb would be content to stand overnight uncomplainingly in a blustering March storm, outside the open gateway to a sheepfold where his brother lambs were snugly housed.
A NEW KNIGHT-ERRANT IN SPECULATION
Another incident occurs to me, which is so typical of those who become infected with the stock market microbe that it seems worth relating. A few years ago a young friend appealed to me for advice as to the best method of investing about $10,000 surplus which he had taken out of his business the previous year with a view to placing it out at interest. I recommended several preferred industrial and railroad securities which seemed reasonably safe as a business man’s investment, and suggested that he put about twenty per cent. of the amount in each of five different stocks. He knew nothing about buying securities, so I introduced him to a reputable firm of bankers and brokers, and in addition to warning him to buy no more than he could pay for in full, I cautioned the head of the firm not to encourage, or even to permit, him to speculate on margin. He bought twenty shares each of five investment stocks, and a few weeks later he informed me, quite excitedly, that already his purchases showed a profit of more than six hundred dollars; also that inasmuch as the market was “going higher” he thought he ought to double his holdings. The mistake I had made in advising him to buy stocks, instead of non-speculative bonds, was now plainly evident; but I could do no more than caution him to stick to his own business and leave the stock market to others. He insisted that he could see no harm in buying a few more shares and margining them fifty points or more with the stocks he then owned; that it would not distract him in the least from his business, nor would it subject him to any risk or anxiety. My counter argument that stocks, having already advanced to a high average level, were as likely to decline as they were to advance further, was totally unconvincing. My young friend had caught the speculative infection; which, like typhoid fever and smallpox, must run its course. It can be treated, and sometimes mitigated, but not cured; in some cases not even by bankruptcy.
About four months later, on returning home after a few weeks’ absence, I received a telephone call from the head of the brokerage firm, informing me that the young man had sold out all his investment securities, and was in a raging fever of speculation; that he was buying and selling all sorts of highly speculative stocks in lots of from a hundred to five hundred shares, and that he spent two or three hours a day watching the ticker. He paid no heed to repeated warnings, and threatened to take his account to some other office if his orders were not executed as given. “What am I to do?” the broker asked in despair. “This young daredevil will probably be in bankruptcy in less than six months.”
On the losing side there are at least three distinct classes to be found at all times in stock market circles: one class who know nothing about the market, except what they read or hear; they are guided by floating rumors, the advice of well-meaning friends, and the spumous counsel of market tipsters. There is another class who arbitrarily suppose they have learned everything there is to know about the market; they possess a large store of cynicism and skepticism, and their market maneuvers are guided by a monumental self-sufficiency that would be a valuable asset in trading but for the fact that it is worthless. There is a third class who, although they really know the practices, theories, precedents and possibilities of the game, are not temperamentally qualified to utilize this knowledge in their transactions.