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.The price on the board at Palm Beach when I gave theoperator the order to sell was 301.I felt so certain that at that very moment the price atwhich the stock was actually selling on the Stock Exchange in New York was less, thatif anybody had offered to take the stock off my hands at 296 I'd have been tickled todeath to accept.What happened shows you that I am right in never trading at limits.Suppose I had limited my selling price to 300? I'd never have got it off.No, sir! Whenyou want to get out, get out.Now, my stock cost me about 300.They got off five hundred shares full shares, ofcourse at 299-3/4.The next thousand they sold at 299-5/8.Then a hundred at 1/2; twohundred at 3/8 and two hundred at 1/4.The last of my stock went at 298-3/4.It tookHarding's cleverest floor man fifteen minutes to get rid of that last one hundred shares.They didn't want to crack it wide open.The moment I got the report of the sale of the last of my long stock I started to do what Ihad really come ashore to do that is, to sell stocks.I simply had to.There was the marketafter its outrageous rally, begging to be sold.Why, people were beginning to talk bullishagain.The course of the market, however, told me that the rally had run its course.Itwas safe to sell them.It did not require reflection.The next day Anaconda opened below 296.Oliver Black, who was waiting for a furtherrally, had come down early to be Johnny-on-the-spot when the stock crossed 320.I don'tknow how much of it he was long of or whether he was long of it at all.But he didn'tlaugh when he saw the opening prices, nor later in the day when the stock broke stillmore and the report came back to us in Palm Beach that there was no market for it at all.Of course that was all the confirmation any man needed.My growing paper profit keptreminding me that I was right, hour by hour.Naturally I sold some more stocks.- 88 -Reminiscences of a Stock OperatorEverything! It was a bear market.They were all going down.The next day was Friday,Washington's Birthday.I couldn't stay in Florida and fish because I had put out a veryfair short line, for me.I was needed in New York.Who needed me? I did! Palm Beachwas too far, too remote.Too much valuable time was lost telegraphing back and forth.I left Palm Beach for New York.On Monday I had to lie in St.Augustine three hours,waiting for a train.There was a broker's office there, and naturally I had to see how themarket was acting while I was waiting.Anaconda had broken several points since thelast trading day.As a matter of fact, it didn't stop going down until the big break thatfall.I got to New York and traded on the bear side for about four months.The market hadfrequent rallies as before, and I kept covering and putting them out again.I didn't,strictly speaking, sit tight.Remember, I had lost every cent of the three hundredthousand dollars I made out of the San Francisco earthquake break.I had been right, andnevertheless had gone broke.I was now playing safe because after being down a manenjoys being up, even if he doesn't quite make the top.The way to make money is tomake it.The way to make big money is to be right at exactly the right time.In thisbusiness a man has to think of both theory and practice.A speculator must not be merelya student, he must be both a student and a speculator.I did pretty well, even if I can now see where my campaign was tactically inadequate.When summer came the market got dull.It was a cinch that there would be nothingdoing in a big way until well along in the fall.Everybody I knew had gone or was goingto Europe.I though that would be a good move for me.So I cleaned up.When I sailedfor Europe I was a trifle more than three-quarters of a million to the good.To me thatlooked like some balance.I was in Aix-les-Bains enjoying myself.I had earned my vacation.It was good to be in aplace like that with plenty of money and friends and acquaintances and everybody intentupon having a good time.Not much trouble about having that, in Aix.Wall Street wasso far away that I never thought about it, and that is more than I could say of any resortin the United States.I didn't have to listen to talk about the stock market.I didn't need totrade.I had enough to last me quite a long time, and besides, when I got back I knewwhat to do to make much more than I could spend in Europe that summer.One day I saw in the Paris Herald a dispatch from New York that Smelters had declared- 89 -Reminiscences of a Stock Operatoran extra dividend [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]