CHAPTER XXVI.
SUCCESSFUL SPECULATION
Success in stock speculation depends upon a few things that are very simple.
If you know what to buy, when to buy, and when to sell, and will act in accordance with that knowledge, your success is assured. You may think it is impossible to know these things, but it is not so difficult as it is supposed to be.
Many people buy stocks at the wrong time, and most of those who do buy them at the right time, buy the wrong stocks. Right now (early in April, 1922) is buying time in the stock market, and it is possible that this buying time may continue—with some interruptions—for another year or two, or even longer.
It is more difficult, however, to tell you WHAT stocks to buy. First of all, we advise you against buying stocks that are put up to high prices by manipulation. Of course, if you get in one of those stocks right and get out right, your profits are very large, but you take a great risk, and those who win once or twice by this method are almost sure to lose everything sooner or later in an effort to do the same thing again. Your chances are not much better than if you gambled at Monte Carlo. The chances in buying manipulated stocks are invariably against the outsider.
There always is so much publicity about these very active speculative stocks that the public is attracted towards them. Newspapers and brokers' market letters give altogether too much space to them. Such stocks sell far too high, and when the break comes, it brings ruinous losses to many people.
On the other hand, by following a conservative course, you really have a chance to make large profits with a minimum risk. We are giving below sixteen stocks that we recommended in our Advisory Letter of February 14th, 1922, with the approximate prices of them then and the approximate prices on March 31st.[2] In arriving at these prices, we took the closing prices on February 13th and on March 31st, and omitted the fractions. We recommended only sixteen stocks on that date, and you will see that every one of them made substantial gains.
| Stock | Approximate Price Feb. 14, 1922 | Approximate Price Mar. 31, 1922 | Profit |
| C. R. I. & P. pfd (6) | 75 | 79 | 4 |
| C. R. I. & P. pfd (7) | 88 | 93 | 5 |
| New York Central | 76 | 88 | 12 |
| Pacific Gas & Electric | 64 | 68 | 4 |
| Consolidated Gas | 90 | 109 | 19 |
| American Telephone & Telegraph | 118 | 121 | 3 |
| General Motors Deb. (6) | 70 | 78 | 8 |
| General Motors Deb. (7) | 81 | 91 | 10 |
| U. S. Steel | 87 | 95 | 8 |
| Dome Mines | 23 | 26 | 3 |
| Laclede Gas | 50 | 63 | 13 |
| Missouri Pacific Pfd | 48 | 54 | 6 |
| C. R. I. & P. Common | 33 | 40 | 7 |
| Am. Smel. & Refining | 45 | 53 | 8 |
| Anaconda | 47 | 51 | 4 |
| Erie Common | 10 | 11 | 1 |
| Total | 1005 | 1120 | 115 |