The Psychology of Speculation

Another incident occurs to me, which is so typical of those who become infected with the stock market microbe that it seems worth relating. A few years ago a young friend appealed to me for advice as to the best method of investing about $10,000 surplus which he had taken out of his business the previous year with a view to placing it out at interest. I recommended several preferred industrial and railroad securities which seemed reasonably safe as a business man's investment, and suggested that he put about twenty per cent. of the amount in each of five different stocks. He knew nothing about buying securities, so I introduced him to a reputable firm of bankers and brokers, and in addition to warning him to buy no more than he could pay for in full, I cautioned the head of the firm not to encourage, or even to permit, him to speculate on margin. He bought twenty shares each of five investment stocks, and a few weeks later he informed me, quite excitedly, that already his purchases showed a profit of more than six hundred dollars; also that inasmuch as the market was "going higher" he thought he ought to double his holdings. The mistake I had made in advising him to buy stocks, instead of non-speculative bonds, was now plainly evident; but I could do no more than caution him to stick to his own business and leave the stock market to others. He insisted that he could see no harm in buying a few more shares and margining them fifty points or more with the stocks he then owned; that it would not distract him in the least from his business, nor would it subject him to any risk or anxiety. My counter argument that stocks, having already advanced to a high average level, were as likely to decline as they were to advance further, was totally unconvincing. My young friend had caught the speculative infection; which, like typhoid fever and smallpox, must run its course. It can be treated, and sometimes mitigated, but not cured; in some cases not even by bankruptcy.

About four months later, on returning home after a few weeks' absence, I received a telephone call from the head of the brokerage firm, informing me that the young man had sold out all his investment securities, and was in a raging fever of speculation; that he was buying and selling all sorts of highly speculative stocks in lots of from a hundred to five hundred shares, and that he spent two or three hours a day watching the ticker. He paid no heed to repeated warnings, and threatened to take his account to some other office if his orders were not executed as given. "What am I to do? " the broker asked in despair. "This young daredevil will probably be in bankruptcy in less than six months."