Montana oil and mining journal. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1931-1953, 1937-11-20
III
TIMING--The Secret of Success

it-for a little ready cash. In the latter
case, the storm, the clouds and the sour
look on the faces of the drfilers all serv-
ed to convince him that they would NEW
Err get the tools out of the hole, and
thus that the well would NEVER be COM
pIeted. That was in spite of the fact that
the contractor was obligated, under his
contract to DRILL ANOTHER HOLE, eve
en- If he lost the first one.
This same sort of fooIishness hits the
investor. He will see a gusher come in
and run out and pay twice as much for
a royalty as it will ever yield, and be
delighted with his Investment He
KNOWS how much oil production 1t
requires to pay him profit on his invest
ment, but he forgets that. Likewise he
will see a dry hole drilled ON a farm I'm
the midst of production, refuse to buy
the royalty even when the discouraged
owner offers 1t on a basis of few cents
on the dollar.
WAY f need only glance at East Texas
w where great fortunes were made
in royalties. Those fortunes were
made i'm the days when the price of oil
was TEN CENTS A BARREL. Royalties
were purchased ehen ON the basis of ten
cents a barrel for oil. Every person who
sold and every person who had sense
enough to buy KNEW positively that this
oil was worth NOT ten cents but a DOL
LAR or more a barrel. So it was that
those who refused to be discouraged by
the ten-cent price made fortunes.
We have frequently pointed out that
stock market profits are made by the
insiders" who create the fluctuations
of the market. 1t is known that while
the rest of the nation was impoverished
by the depression, many New York stock
manipuIatOrs made MILLIONS of dollars.
Percy Rockefeller is said to have made
T,afxx nd &AEK 000
by selling securities short. While Richard
Whitney, president of the New York Stock
Exchange, was making his dramatic bid
of rs for United States Steel. {. Percy
Rockefeller was selling. When John ID.
Jr., announced that he and his father
were buying stocks, Percy Rockefeller
was making millions by SELLING
SHORT.
The idea is not a bad one, as we now
think back to the days when Anaconda
skidded from 40 to less than o; u. s.
Industrial Alcohol dropped from 236 to
27-and so on, down the list. We haven't
the millions to go into the market and
plunge on a campaign of short sales
Percy Rockefeller did, but we should
be able to apply the principle to our own
business.
One way, In royalties, would be to ac-
comphsh what happened in East Texas.
We know how the greatest fortunes of
Texas history were made-through the
advent of 1O-cent oil. Had oil never
dropped below a dollar, the fortunes
would not have been made by the i'm
vestOrs, because the royalty sellers would
never have sold. SO that gives us am idea
here i'm Montana. If we could some way
bring about an over-production situation
so as to depress the market and get the
price of crude down, with winter coming
on and the skies gray overhead, 1t
would be an excellent time to try to buy
sOmbe Montana royalties.
n Asst week landowner came to ms
wanting to sell some royalty. The
1 operator on his lease has no mar
ket. The landowner has spent all his mon