Although the Black Friday “corner” was a temporary calamity, perhaps it was worth all it cost, in teaching us a useful lesson in financial and speculative affairs. In my chapter on “Panics, and How to Prevent Them,” I think I have made several points clear that can be utilized by financiers, speculators and investors to advantage, in ease of an impending panic or “corner.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XXI. CAUSES OF LOSS IN SPECULATION. INADEQUATE INFORMATION.—FALSE INFORMATION.—DEFECTS OF NEWS AGENCIES.—INSUFFICIENCY OF MARGINS.—DANGERS OF PERSONAL IDIOSYNCRASIES.—OPERATING IN SEASON AND OUT OF SEASON.—NECESSITY OF INTELLIGENCE, JUDGMENT AND NERVE.—AN IDEAL STANDARD.—WHAT MAKES A KING AMONG SPECULATORS? As there is always a class of speculators whose operations, in the long run, leave a net result of loss rather than profit, it may not be amiss if I state what experience has taught me as to the causes of this want of success. Undoubtedly, many who enter the arena of speculation are in every way unfitted to take the risks against such wily opponents as they must encounter. They are either too ignorant or too wise, too timid or too bold, too pessimistic or too sanguine, too slow or too hasty, too diffident or too conceited, too confiding or too incredulous. These are constitutional defects, any one of which may easily cost an operator a fortune. And yet self-knowledge, with self-control, may prevent these natural disqualifications from seriously interfering with success. There is no mental discipline more severe and exacting than that of speculation. There is no pursuit in which a man can less afford to indulge in whims, or prejudices, or pet theories, than that of staking his money against the prospective changes in financial values. He must be as calm and as impartial as a judge, not less in respect to the risks he incurs than in regard to the integrity of his own judgment. I should lay it down as the first rule necessary to success, that the judgment be not warped by any natural idiosyncrasies; this being secured, a man may succeed in spite of his constitutional defects. Singular as it may seem, there are no advantages beset with greater dangers than information—the one thing most largely sought after and most highly prized. Very naturally, most men object to taking a risk without possessing some knowledge of the conditions that determine the risk; and yet how few take care that their knowledge is adequate enough or certain enough for the formation of a safe judgment. In some cases, knowledge is unattainable and the operation must be a leap in the dark; and in such instances a man is unwise to step in unless his experience satisfies him that he is uncommonly sagacious in guessing.