Reminiscences of a Stock Operator 這本記錄20世紀早期最著名的股票炒家 Jesse Livermore 事蹟的名著，我和一些朋友都認為，最印象深刻的是這一段 (在 Chapter 5)，可能是時候溫習一下：
Most let us call'em customers -- are alike. You find very
few who can truthfully say that Wall Street doesn't owe them
money. In Fullerton's there were the usual crowd. All grades!
Well, there was one old chap who was not like the others. To
begin with, he was a much older man. Another thing was that he
never volunteered advice and never bragged of his winnings. He
was a great hand for listening very attentively to the others.
He did not seem very keen to get tips -- that is, he never asked
the talkers what they'd heard or what they knew. But when
somebody gave him one he always thanked the tipster very
politely. Sometimes he thanked the tipster again -- when the tip
turned out O.K. But if it went wrong he never whined, so that
nobody could tell whether he followed it or let it slide by. It
was a legend of the office that the old jigger was rich and
could swing quite a line. But he wasn't donating much to the
firm in the way of commissions; at least not that anyone could
see. His name was Partridge, but they nicknamed him Turkey
behind his back, because he was so thick-chested and had a habit
of strutting about the various rooms, with the point of his chin
resting on his breast.
The customers, who were all eager to be shoved and forced
into doing things so as to lay the blame for failure on others,
used to go to old Partridge and tell him what some friend of a
friend of an insider had advised them to do in a certain stock.
They would tell him what they had not done with the tip so he
would tell them what they ought to do. But whether the tip they
had was to buy or to sell, the old chap's answer was always the
same.
The customer would finish the tale of his perplexity and
then ask: "What do you think I ought to do?"
Old Turkey would cock his head to one side, contemplate his
fellow customer with a fatherly smile, and finally he would say
very impressively, "You know, it's a bull market!"
Time and again I heard him say, "Well, this is a bull market,
you know!" as though he were giving to you a priceless talisman
wrapped up in a million-dollar accident-insurance policy. And of
course I did not get his meaning.
One day a fellow named Elmer Harwood rushed into the
office, wrote out an order and gave it to the clerk. Then he
rushed over to where Mr. Partridge was listening politely to
John Fanning's story of the time he overheard Keene give an
order to one of his brokers and all that John made was a measly
three points on a hundred shares and of course the stock had to
go up twenty-four points in three days right after John sold
out. It was at least the fourth time that John had told him that
tale of woe, but old Turkey was smiling as sympathetically as if
it was the first time he heard it.
Well, Elmer made for the old man and, without a word of
apology to John Fanning, told Turkey, "Mr. Partridge, I have
just sold my Climax Motors. My people say the market is entitled
to a reaction and that I'll be able to buy it back cheaper. So
you'd better do likewise. That is, if you've still got yours."
Elmer looked suspiciously at the man to whom he had given the
original tip to buy. The amateur, or gratuitous, tipster always
thinks he owns the receiver of his tip body and soul, even
before he knows how the tip is going to turn out.
"Yes, Mr. Harwood, I still have it. Of course!" said Turkey
gratefully. It was nice of Elmer to think of the old chap.
"Well, now is the time to take your profit and get in again on
the next dip," said Elmer, as if he had just made out the
deposit slip for the old man. Failing to perceive enthusiastic
gratitude in the beneficiary's face Elmer went on: "I have just
sold every share I owned!"
From his voice and manner you would have conservatively
estimated it at ten thousand shares.
But Mr. Partridge shook his head regretfully and whined, "No!
No! I can't do that!"
:'What?" yelled Elmer.
"I simply can't!" said Mr. Partridge. He was in great
trouble.
"Didn't I give you the tip to buy it?"
"You did, Mr. Harwood, and I am very grateful to you.
Indeed, I am, sir. But --"
"Hold on! Let me talk! And didn't that stock go up seven
points in ten days? Didn't it?"
"It did, and I am much obliged to you, my dear boy. But I
couldn't think of selling that stock."
"You couldn't?" asked Elmer, beginning to look doubtful
himself. It is a habit with most tip givers to be tip takers.
"No, I couldn't."
"Why not?" And Elmer drew nearer.
"Why, this is a bull market!" The old fellow said it as
though he had given a long and detailed explanation.
"That's all right," said Elmer, looking angry because of
his disappointment. "I know this is a bull market as well as you
do. But you'd better slip them that stock of yours and buy it
back on the reaction. You might as well reduce the cost to
yourself."
"My dear boy," said old Partridge, in great distress "my
dear boy, if I sold that stock now I'd lose my position; and
then where would I be?"
Elmer Harwood threw up his hands, shook his head and walked
over to me to get sympathy: "Can you beat it?" he asked me in a
stage whisper. "I ask you!"
I didn't say anything. So he went on: "I give him a tip on
Climax Motors. He buys five hundred shares. He's got seven
points' profit and I advise him to get out and buy 'em back on
the reaction that's overdue even now. And what does he say when
I tell him? He says that if he sells he'll lose his job. What do
you know about that?"
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Harwood; I didn't say I'd lose my
job," cut in old Turkey. "I said I'd lose my position. And when
you are as old as I am and you've been through as many booms and
panics as I have, you'll know that to lose your position is
something nobody can afford; not even John D. Rockefeller. I
hope the stock reacts and that you will be able to repurchase
your line at a substantial concession, sir. But I myself can
only trade in accordance with the experience of many years. I
paid a high price for it and I don't feel like throwing away a
second tuition fee. But I am as much obliged to you as if I had
the money in the bank. It's a bull market, you know." And he
strutted away, leaving Elmer dazed.
What old Mr. Partridge said did not mean much to me until I
began to think about my own numerous failures to make as much
money as I ought to when I was so right on the general market.
The more I studied the more I realized how wise that old chap
was. He had evidently suffered from the same defect in his young
days and knew his own human weaknesses. He would not lay himself
open to a temptation that experience had taught him was hard to
resist and had always proved expensive to him, as it was to me.
I think it was a long step forward in my trading education
when I realized at last that when old Mr. Partridge kept on
telling the other customers, "Well, you know this is a bull
market!" he really meant to tell them that the big money was not
in the individual fluctuations but in the main movements that
is, not in reading the tape but in sizing up the entire market
and its trend.
And right here let me say one thing: After spending many
years in Wall Street and after making and losing millions of
dollars I want to tell you this: It never was my thinking that
made the big money for me. It always was my sitting. Got that?
My sitting tight! It is no trick at all to be right on the
market. You always find lots of early bulls in bull markets and
early bears in bear markets. I've known many men who were right
at exactly the right time, and began buying or selling stocks
when prices were at the very level, which should show the
greatest profit. And their experience invariably matched mine --
that is, they made no real money out of it. Men who can both be
right and sit tight are uncommon. I found it one of the hardest
things to learn. But it is only after a stock operator has
firmly grasped this that he can make big money. It is literally
true that millions come easier to a trader after he knows how to
trade than hundreds did in the days of his ignorance.
The reason is that a man may see straight and clearly and
yet become impatient or doubtful when the market takes its time
about doing as he figured it must do. That is why so many men in
Wall Street, who are not at all in the sucker class, not even in
the third grade, nevertheless lose money. The market does not
beat them. They beat themselves, because though they have brains
they cannot sit tight. Old Turkey was dead right in doing and
saying what he did. He had not only the courage of his
convictions but the intelligent patience to sit tight.
Disregarding the big swing and trying to jump in and out
was fatal to me. Nobody can catch all the fluctuations. In a
bull market your game is to buy and hold until you believe that
the bull market is near its end. To do this you must study
general conditions and not tips or special factors affecting
individual stocks. Then get out of all your stocks; get out for
keeps! Wait until you see -- or if you prefer, until you think
you see the turn of the market; the beginning of a reversal of
general conditions. You have to use your brains and your vision
to do this; otherwise my advice would be as idiotic as to tell
you to buy cheap and sell dear. One of the most helpful things
that anybody can learn is to give up trying to catch the last
eighth or the first. These two are the most expensive eighths in
the world. They have cost stock traders, in the aggregate,
enough millions of dollars to build a concrete highway across
the continent.
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