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uy Amalgamated at around 130!
Reminiscences of a Stock Operator
A brilliant operator, James R. Keene! His private secretary told me that when the market
was going his way Mr. Keene was irascible; and those who knew him say his irascibility
was expressed in sardonic phrases that lingered long in the memory of his hearers. But
when he was losing he was in the best of humour, a polished man of the world,
agreeable, epigrammatic, interesting.
He had in superlative degree the qualities of mind that are associated with successful
speculators anywhere. That he did not argue with the tape is plain. He was utterly
fearless but never reckless. He could and did turn in a twinkling, if he found he was
wrong.
Since his day there have been so many changes in Stock Exchange rules and so much
more rigorous enforcement of old rules, so many new taxes on stock sales and profits,
and so on, that the game seems different. Devices that Keene could use with skill and
profit can no longer be utilised. Also, we are assured, the business morality of Wall
Street is on a higher plane. Nevertheless it is fair to say that in any period of our
financial history Keene would have been a great manipulator because he was a great
stock operator and knew the game of speculation from the ground tip. He achieved what
he did because conditions at the time permitted him to do so. He would have been as
successful in his undertakings in 1922 as he was in 1901 or in 1876, when he first came
to New York from California and made nine million dollars in two years. There are men
whose gait is far quicker than the mob's. They are bound to lead no matter how much the
mob changes.
As a matter of fact, the change is by no means as radical as you'd imagine. The rewards
are not so great, for it is no longer pioneer work and therefore it is not pioneer's pay. But
in certain respects manipulation is easier than it was; in other ways much harder than in
Keene's day.
There is no question that advertising is an art, and manipulation is the art of advertising
through the medium of the tape. The tape should tell the story the manipulator wishes its
readers to see. The truer the story the more convincing it is bound to be, and the more
convincing it is the better the advertising is. A manipulator to-day, for instance, has not
only to make a stock look strong but also to make it be strong. Manipulation therefore
must be based on sound trading principles. That is what made Keene such a marvellous
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