Profitable Stock Exchange Investments

by Henry Voorce Brandenburg & Co.

The men who win in Wall Street are those who invest in stocks—good, dividend-paying stocks, buying them when they are low, selling them when they are high.

This is not gambling nor speculation any more than any legitimate business is gambling or speculation.

In all classes of business we buy at a certain price, and sell at a higher price.

We buy under the most advantageous circumstances possible, paying the least possible price and selling at the highest market price.

This is what we are doing in Wall Street, and as we handle only the stocks of sound and stable corporations, the security behind our operations will be the strongest in the world.

The gist of the matter is that the stocks of the leading and most stable corporations of the country are tossed about in Wall Street from speculator to speculator, going up and down constantly and varying enormously in the prices at which they are bought and sold.

These changes in prices are nearly always due to a feverish and excited market. The stocks themselves do not actually vary in real value. They are worth a certain sum all the time. They are paying dividends on that sum and the stocks at their real value are always a good investment. Yet by the manipulations of the speculators and on account of the exigencies of these Wall Street marginal gamblers such stocks can be bought at times at a fraction of their value, and by reason of the same causes can be sold at other times for far more than they are really worth.

The men who make the money in Wall Street are those who know what stocks are really worth and who buy when prices, go down and sell when they go up, buying and selling the same stocks over and over again, and making a handsome profit on every transaction. They do not care how low a stock they hold goes for the reason that the stock belongs to them, they know what it is actually worth as a dividend payer, and in the skyrocket performances of the speculators of the Street they take no interest except as it gives them opportunities to buy and sell. They do not care how high a stock goes; they have no shortages to cover, but can simply sit back and sell as much of their holdings as they choose whenever they see an opportunity to make a big turn.

Such men will turn a block of stock in a given corporation over and over dozens of times in the course of a year, making so much money on it that even if the stock should disappear off the face of the earth altogether, they would still be far ahead on it, simply on account of the numerous advances and declines.

By owning stocks in a large number of good, sound corporations, they will average to make a certain sum of money every day in the year. They spread their invested capital over a wide field in this manner, and the laws of average make them sure gainers at every stage of their operations.