VOObyM

Reminiscences of a Stock Operator
Chapter VI
In the spring of 1906 I was in Atlantic City for a short vacation. I was out of stocks and
was thinking only of having a change of air and a nice rest. By the way, I had gone back
to my first brokers, Harding Brothers, and my account had got to be pretty active. I
could swing three or four thousand shares. That wasn't much more than I had done in the
old Cosmopolitan shop when I was barely twenty years of age. But there was some
difference between my one-point margin in the bucket shop and the margin required by
brokers who actually bought or sold stocks for my account on the New York Stock
Exchange.
You may remember the story I told you about that time when I was short thirty-five
hundred Sugar in the Cosmopolitan and I had a hunch something was wrong and I'd
better close the trade? Well, I have often had that curious feeling. As a rule, I yield to it.
But at times I have pooh-poohed the idea and have told myself that it was simply asinine
to follow any of these sudden blind impulses to reverse my position. I have ascribed my
hunch to a state of nerves resulting from too many cigars or insufficient sleep or a torpid
liver or something of that kind. When I have argued myself into disregarding my
impulse and have stood pat I have always had cause to regret it. A dozen instances occur
to me when I did not sell as per hunch, and the next day I'd go downtown and the market
would be strong, or perhaps even advance, and I'd tell myself how silly it would have
been to obey the blind impulse to sell. But on the following day there would be a pretty
bad drop. Something had broken loose somewhere and I'd have made money by not
being so wise and logical. The reason plainly was not physiological but psychological.
I want to tell you only about one of them because of what it did for me. It happened
when I was having that little vacation in Atlantic City in the spring of 1906. I had a
friend with me who also was a customer of Harding Brothers. I had no interest in the
market one way or another and was enjoying my rest. I can always give up trading to
- 57 -