The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1893-03-30

sometimes ne makes your &coua1Jance
| accidentally as it were. Sometimes he
brings a letter Of introcticn from some
person who doesn't thoroughly know
| him. Then, again he advertises, When
he advertises it is done something like
| these announcements, which can b
cut by the dozen out of any Sunday
newspaper of large circulation;
CONFIDENTIAL CLERK to prominent op.
orator knows Of good dividend paying stock
tn 1sat viii y,s s. good profits Address Profits
A GREAT OPPORTUNITY for making
money in stocks. For particulars address
Active. box 3W. - Oaacs
A.-WANTRD-Party with capital to take
advantage of my reliable information on
stock market. Address Success, box "a. -
If you address either of these ingen-
ious gentlemen, he will call on you if
he thinks you are worth calling upon,
and after some conversation touching
the necessity of caution and confidence
ON both sides, and the superior sources
of information enjoyed upon his side,
he will toll you to 60 at once to your
broker and buy X, Y, Il shares. That
is, unless he has just advised some
other person to buy X, Y, z; in which
case he will earnestly urge you to has
ten, without loss of time, to sell X, u.
Z. AS for the profits, in all cases he is
to have half the net gain, andihe leaves
it to your honor to let him know what
the amount of the gain is.
If ten persons act upon his advice,
five will gain and Eve will lose. The
loser he has nothing to do with, he
would prefer not to see them; but ne
has the names of the winners in his
memorandum book and he rarely fails
to collect from them. This pitfaH looks
like shallow artifice, and it is: but a
great many people slide down its sides
in the course of any given year. Else
how should the professional point-giver
flourish as he does and have so much
cash wherewith to advertise in the Sun
day newspapers?
One of the worst, deepest, most dan
gerous and most largely tuIn bled into of
all the pitfalls of Wall street is dug by
operate themselves, and seems to be
the result of vice of the human men
tai constitution, which, so far as we
know, is ineradica bic when once it be-
comes habit. This is the practice of
taking small profits and large 1esses.
A speculator puts up 10 per cent mar
gin and buys X, Y, z ats. Tho shares
fall to "A, IS, 72 and 50 on. Now if he
knows the property to be sound why
should he relinquish it merely because
the market price is lower than it was?
On the contrary, if he can afford it, it
may be policy for him to buy another
lot at 20, and even another lot at IS,
besides protecting his FIRST pur-
chase.
But suppose he is merely Spectator,
whose gains proceed from turning
small capital frequently, is it not his
plain cause of action to drop his pur-
chase at Is and take chances of buying
in again! Most of us would say, Eyes
by all means" But as matter of fact
he will not drop out until the 10 per
cent. margin Is exhausted.
But if X, Y, q had gone up to II or
7s, and then shown tendency to sag
off, the same operator would at once
have closed the transaction. thus show
ing willingness to gain by twos and
threes and lose by tens.
An English novelist once wrote:
''There are at this moment 10. 900 Eng
lishmen wandering homeless and pen
niless over the continent of Europe be-
cause they would not lead trumps at
the proper time!' So any well-inforned
broker can say, of his own personal
knowledge and experience: There are
thousands of American citizens who
are to-day poor because they would not
cut short their losses and let their
profits run on
This is also a dangerous pitfall.
which men dig for themselves; namely.
the belief that because certain des-
cription of shares mounts and mounts
and scars above previous calculations
of the general market, therefore it is
desirable to buy into it after it has
mounted during long period Of days.
This belief is almost universal, and vet
it directly contradicts our experience
and the laws OF Nature.
We know that the higher the wave
gets the breaker is at the top. while
its base IS always strong: and we also
know that whatever goes up has ten
dency to descend again. and that the
time always comes when the holders OF
any commercial property. no matter
how desirable, prefer money TO prop
ertv.
But the majority of outside operators
regard the market as strongest when
prices are up and weakest when prices
are down. and act accordingly; whereas
those who know base their actions on
she 6rD truth that the market is ner~r