VOObyM

Reminiscences of a Stock Operator
wheat just you watch it. Wait. The moment it crosses $1.20 buy it and you will get a
nice quick play in it!"
"Why not buy it now, at $1.14?" one of the party asked.
"Because I don't know yet that it is going up at all."
"Then why buy it at $1.20? It seems a mighty high price."
"Do you wish to gamble blindly in the hope of getting a great big profit or do you wish
to speculate intelligently and get a smaller but much more probable profit?"
They all said they wanted the smaller but surer profit, so I said, "Then do as I tell you. If
it crosses $1.20 buy."
As I told you, I had watched it a long time. For months it sold between $1.10 and $1.20,
getting nowhere in particular. Well, sir, one day it closed at above $1.19. I got ready for
it, Sure enough the next day it opened at $1.20-1/2, and I bought. It went to $1.21, to
$1.22, to $1.23, to $1.25, and I went with it.
Now I couldn't have told you at the time just what was going on. I didn't get any
explanations about its behaviour during the course of the limited fluctuations. I couldn't
tell whether the breaking through the limit would be up through $1.20 or down through
$1.10, though I suspected it would be up because there was not enough wheat in the
world for a big break in prices.
As a matter of fact, it seems Europe had been buying quietly and a lot of traders had
gone short of it at around $1.19. Owing to the European purchases and other causes, a
lot of wheat had been taken out of the market, so that finally the big movement got
started. The price went beyond the $1.20 mark. That was all the point I had and it was
all I needed. I knew that when it crossed $1.20 it would be because the upward
movement at last had gathered force to push it over the limit and something had to
happen. In other words, by crossing $1.20 the line of least resistance of wheat prices was
established. It was a different story then.
I remember that one day was a holiday with us and all our markets were closed. Well, in
Winnipeg wheat opened up six cents a bushel. When our market opened on the
following day, it also was up six cents a bushel. The price just went along the line of
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