VOObyM

Reminiscences of a Stock Operator
The moment I found that their selling of corn ceased I simply bought in the other four
million bushels at the market. Of course that made the price go up again, but the net
result of my maneuver was that I covered the entire line of ten million bushels within
one-half cent of the price prevailing at the time I started to cover on the traders' selling.
The two hundred thousand bushels of oats that I sold short to start the traders' selling of
corn I covered at a loss of only three thousand dollars. That was pretty cheap bear bait.
The profits I had made in wheat offset so much of my deficit in corn that my total loss
on all my grain trades that time was only twenty-five thousand dollars. Afterwards corn
went up twenty-five cents a bushed. Stratton undoubtedly had me at his mercy. If I had
set about buying my ten million bushels of corn without bothering to think of the price
there is no telling what I would have had to pay.
A man can't spend years at one thing and not acquire a habitual attitude towards it quite
unlike that of the average beginner. The difference distinguishes the professional from
the amateur. It is the way a man looks at things that makes or loses money for him in the
speculative markets. The public has the dilettante's point of view toward his own effort.
The ego obtrudes itself unduly and the thinking therefore is not deep or exhaustive. The
professional concerns himself with doing the right thing rather than with making money,
knowing that the profit takes care of itself if the other things are attended to. A trader
gets to play the game as the professional billiard player does that is, he looks far ahead
instead of considering the particular shot before him. It gets to be an instinct to play for
position.
I remember hearing a story about Addison Cammack that illustrates very nicely what I
wish to point out. From all I have heard, I am inclined to think that Cammack was one of
the ablest stock traders the Street ever saw. He was not a chronic bear as many believe,
but he felt the greater appeal of trading on the bear side, of utilising in his behalf the two
great human factors of hope and fear. He is credited with coining the warning: "Don't
sell stocks when the sap is running up the trees!" and the old-timers tell me that his
biggest winnings were made on the bull side, so that it is plain he did not play prejudices
but conditions. At all events, he was a consummate trader. It seems that once this was
way back at the tag end of a bull market Cammack was bearish, and J. Arthur Joseph,
the financial writer and raconteur, knew it. The market, however, was not only strong
but still rising, in response to prodding by the bull leaders and optimistic reports by the
newspapers. Knowing what use a trader like Cammack could make of bearish
information, Joseph rushed to Cammack's office one day with glad tidings.
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