The Goldfield news. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1904-1911, 1905-04-14
Why Investors Want LOW=PriCed

BY LLOYD X. JONES


As a usual thing (but all rules have
their exceptions) the investing public
demands "cheap stock"
There is a reason for this. Don't ar
que it out along the line that the people
who buy that kind of stock want any
thing "~shoddy." Maybe they are par
ticular to a painful degree. But they
want stock that has a low price attached
to it.
The secret of business success lies in
giving people what they ask for. That
is why we Americans make more money
in commercial lines than most Euro
peans. This applies especially to the
English, who try to educate buyers in
the use of the manufacturers goods.
They do in a way-but when you make
a fellow buy what he really doesn't
want, because he cannot get the real
thing, he digs into his bill pocket with a
very bad grace.
We don't always wait for the public
to tell us what the secret wants OF the
individual may be, because we are too
versatile for that. Men have ideas, and
they exploit them. If they have reached
a physical or psychological want, well
and good. If they haven't their
money is still in the channels OF COM
merce, so there is some solace in that.
But the beauty of it is, when we are on
a hot scent we keep it up. When the
trail is cold, we drop it. That is simply
animal instinct, but we have developed
it to a finer degree than u foreign
cousins have. This does not imply that
they can't develop it-because they do
when they become part OF our system.
In fact, they oft-times make the pace,
and keep us racking after them in a
dizzy, stiff-kneed manner
These truths are common property,
and vet, we-Americans in name and
right-heirs apparent to the throne OF
push and success, frequently fall all over
ourselves and each other in chasing a
shadow.
One of those shadows is high-priced
stock.
PRAY, what is the sense of calling your
fellow-creatures tlat-heads, and other
astonishingly eve names because they
will have none Of your hundred dollar
stock? 1t will not make them accept it.
You may as we'll go into one OF the or
thodox churches, climb the pulpit, and
try to initiate the congregation into the
mysteries OF the black-skinned voodoo
doctors. You might talk till you were
black in the face, and for your pains,
YOU would light on the hard, cold pave
] ment in a most unchristianlike manner.
The point against you would be your
lack of Judgment.
The same principle obtains when you
attempt to peddle high-priced stock.
And if you fail? You simply heap
YOUR vituperations on the managers of
the newspapers. You say things that
the mail service would decline to accept
as fit for distribution. Or-if you are a
gentleman-you creep into your shell,
and cry till your sobbing lulls you into
silence. And heavens. such a silence!
There are reasons for the frigid indif-
ference of the investing public in mat
tiers of high-priced stock. To begin
with, it lacks convertibility. The pub
lie is made up OF a very clever aggrega-
ton these days. Men invest not entirely
for the security, but for the sake of SELL
ing their holdings when the time is
ripe. The Palmer mansion would be a
mighty poor buy for a %prospector. But
he might smile benignly on a cheap
tent. When he buys that, he has m
thing. When he buys a pile of stone.
mortar and French glass, he might as
we'll be sole proprietor of a cemetery.
On the same lines, if the man wishes to
expend money on something large, pur-
chases real estate or a bond issue, he
trades in what is convertible among
that class of people. But when he buys
stock in a prospective enterprise, he
wants something that that class of peo-
pie can buy. The man who works in
the planning mill or furniture factory
might buy 100 shares of 20 cent stock
or 800 shares; but he would never,
never put that amount in a single share.
Why? For the simple and sufficient
reason that he could not find a buyer if
he wanted to sell. ONE will never look
as large as FIVE HUNDRED. No
matter what the circumstances are, the
investor will turn toward bulk, other
things being equal.
One hundred dollars for each share of
stock is a price that has "a place in Wall
street-sometimes Generally, it is
hammered much below that figure. But
in the marts of small stock dealing, it is
like wasted energy.
Dollar stock that is selling at 10 cents
has many takers. The difference be-
- n I - ~ A-t ., ,ac,n~,l1o IL