The Psychology of Speculation by Henry Howard Harper

The stock market literature of the past thirty years would make a vast / library in itself -- one that would provide reading for a lifetime. / Perhaps there is no other subject, apart from the eternal topic of / love, in which more people are vitally concerned, either directly / or indirectly. Since most of the country's wealth and commerce is / controlled by corporations whose securities are listed on the various / stock exchanges, the price fluctuations, which often reach the daily / aggregate of hundreds of millions of dollars, either in loss or / enhancement of value, are necessarily a matter of general concern. / In 1925 the stock transactions on the New York Stock Exchange alone / amounted to the stupendous and unprecedented total of well over / 452,000,000 shares, while the sales of listed bonds totaled more than / $3,398,000,000. These figures, of course, do not include the unknown / billions of dollars worth of securities bought and sold on a dozen or / more other exchanges and through private channels.

In addition to the large daily grist of "Market Opinions," many books / and pamphlets are written which purport to be "Guides to Traders," / or up-to-date recipes for "Beating Wall Street. " They set forth an / exhaustive array of statistics, instructions and warnings; they / furnish elaborately charted plans indicating many of the pitfalls of / speculation; they tell how to avoid these, how to buy, what to buy, / when to buy and how to make money; but while the theories advanced are / oftentimes sound and easily comprehended, very few people profit by / them, because when once caught in the maelstrom of stock speculation / the average man becomes more or less mesmerized, and at critical / moments his conservatism, his resolutions and his theories all take / flight.