VOObyM

Reminiscences of a Stock Operator
In the old days the strength of Reading might have fooled me. The tape kept on saying,
"Leave it alone!" But my reason told me differently. I was anticipating a general break,
and there were not going to be any exceptions, pool or no pool.
I have always played a lone hand. I began that way in the bucket shops and have kept it
up. It is the way my mind works. I have to do my own seeing and my own thinking. But
I can tell you after the market began to go my way I felt for the first time in my life that I
had allies the strongest and truest in the world: underlying conditions. They were
helping me with all their might. Perhaps they were a trifle slow at times in bringing up
the reserves, but they were dependable, provided I did not get too impatient. I was not
pitting my tape-reading knack or my hunches against chance. The inexorable logic of
events was making money for me.
The thing was to be right; to know it and to act accordingly. General conditions, my true
allies, said "Down!" and Reading disregarded the command. It was an insult to us. It
began to annoy me to see Reading holding firmly, as though everything were serene. It
ought to be the best short sale in the entire list because it had not gone down and the
pool was carrying a lot of stock that it would not be able to carry when the money
stringency grew more pronounced. Some day the bankers' friends would fare no better
than the friendless public. The stock must go with the others. If Reading didn't decline,
then my theory was wrong; I was wrong; facts were wrong; logic was wrong.
I figured that the price held because the Street was afraid to sell it. So on day I gave to
two brokers each an order to sell four thousand shares, at the same time. You ought to
have seen that cornered stock, that it was sure suicide to go short of, take a headlong
dive when those competitive orders struck it. I let 'em have a few thousand more. The
price was in when I started selling it. Within a few minutes I took in my entire short line
at 92.
I had a wonderful time after that, and in February of 1907 I cleaned up. Great Northern
preferred had gone down sixty or seventy points, and other stocks in proportion. I had
made a good bit, but the reason I cleaned up was that I figured that the decline had
discounted the immediate future. I looked for a fair recovery, but I wasn't bullish enough
to play for a turn. I wasn't going to lose my position entirely. The market would not be
right for me to trade in for a while. The first ten thousand dollars I made in the bucket
shops I lost because I traded in and out of season, every day, whether or not conditions
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