| OCR Text |
Show THE WALL STREET ADVANCE Not for hccio years nas there been such a shsrp advance In securities ns thoso recently recorded. I'eoplo who conteinplato Investments should reflect carefully on tho way In whl eh Wall street urrlves at Its opinion. In ovory day trade, tho sentiment of buyers nnd sellers Is about equnl-ly equnl-ly balanced Krom this equal balunco of conflicting Interest, an equilibrium Is reached which usually approximates approxim-ates very closely to actual values. Nine tenths of nil who dabblo In stocks nro buyers. Thoy ncqulro stocks when they think they nro low, hoping for high prices. Tho llnanclal reports In tho newspapers nil rollett tho great piepondornnco of buying sentiment, thoso who expect to mnko money by advances. Tho great majority ma-jority of financial roports at any f,l'-en f,l'-en tlmo nro cheerful, tending to encourage en-courage buying. Tho bn'ance against this great preponderant pre-ponderant of optimism Is kopt up largely by tho professional "bears," operators who mnko a business, of contracting to deliver stocks at Prices Pric-es under the niarkot. Thoy thrive by tho over conlldcnco nnd over optimism op-timism of other peoplo. They nro n small minority. Hut tho hopeful, trusting, confiding public so frequently frequent-ly pushes prices nhead too fast, th'it tho bear gets n great many thnin.os to work his profitable game. It Is probablo that for a very largo part of tho tlmo for tho past twenty yenrs, prices of securities linvo been to high. Thoy aro kept thcro by tho great preponderance of the peoplo I who want to mako monoy by buying stocks, Whereforo tho Investing public should bo cautious about rushing In too fast to buy securities. It is probably pro-bably truo that within two or threo years with tho war over, nnd business busi-ness confldenco fully restored, secur ities will bo higher. Hut thor0 will bo many ups and downs. I'eoplo I who buy should tnko only tho most bolld securities, nnd should bo pro-pared pro-pared to lock them In their tin boxes nnd forget about them. |
