VOObyM

Reminiscences of a Stock Operator
the office had made a lot in commissions from me. I admit I was a little sore to think that
Williamson & Brown didn't give me a decent stake. I intended to trade conservatively at
first. It would make my financial recovery easier and quicker if I could begin with a line
a little better than five hundred shares. But, anyhow, I realised that, such as it was, there
was my chance to come back.
I left Dan Williamson's office and studied the situation in general and my own problem
in particular. It was a bull market. That was as plain to me as it was to thousands of
traders. But my stake consisted merely of an offer to carry five hundred shares for me.
That is, I had no leeway, limited as I was. I couldn't afford even a slight setback at the
beginning. I must build up my stake with my very first play. That initial purchase of
mine of five hundred shares must be profitable. I had to make real money. I knew that
unless I had sufficient trading capital I would not be able to use good judgment. Without
adequate margins it would be impossible to take the cold-blooded, dispassionate attitude
toward the game that comes from the ability to afford a few minor losses such as I often
incurred in testing the market before putting down the big bet.
I think now that I found myself then at the most critical period of my career as a
speculator. If I failed this time there was no telling where or when, if ever, I might get
another stake for another try. It was very clear that I simply must wait for the exact
psychological moment.
I didn't go near Williamson & Brown's. I mean, I purposely kept away from them for six
long weeks of steady tape reading. I was afraid that if I went to the office, knowing that I
could buy five hundred shares, I might be tempted into trading at the wrong time or in
the wrong stock. A trader, in addition to studying basic conditions, remembering market
precedents and keeping in mind the psychology of the outside public as well as the
limitations of his brokers, must also know himself and provide against his own
weaknesses. There is no need to feel anger over being human. I have come to feel that it
is as necessary to know how to read myself as to know how to read the tape. I have
studied and reckoned on my own reactions to given impulses or to the inevitable
temptations of an active market, quite in the same mood and spirit as I have considered
crop conditions or analysed reports of earnings.
So day after day, broke and anxious to resume trading, I sat in front of a quotation-board
in another broker's office where I couldn't buy or sell as much as one share of stock,
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