Equally is the man to be commiserated who, from a constitutional intoxication of hope, keeps on buying and holding when it is manifest that the country has passed the summit of an era of prosperity and is destined to a general reaction in trade and values. Of course, such men never remain long in Wall Street; their pockets are soon emptied, and they retire to reflect on the folly of refusing to appreciate and to follow the natural drift of the conditions that regulate values. A minor source of losses lies in operating at times when the market is so evenly balanced between opposing forces that there is no chance for making profits. At such times, operators get disgusted at the sluggishness of the market; they change their holdings from day to day, with no advantage except to their broker; and their monthly statement shows a heavy list of charges for interest and commissions, with no offset of profits. These intervals of stagnancy sometimes run for weeks, sometimes for months; and at such times a wise speculator would take care to keep out of the market and hold himself in readiness for anything that may turn up. It is necessary to the avoidance of loss that the operator should maintain an intelligent watch upon the influences that control the market. Those influences are two-fold—such as are intrinsic to the market, and such as are external to it. Of the former class are those that relate to the spirit and tone of the market; the position and disposition of the cliques; the action of the large operators; the overloaded or over-sold state of the market, as indicated by the loaning rates for stocks; the influence exerted by the upward or downward movements in stocks which at the moment are specially active; the possibility of closing out holders on “stop orders” or on the impairment of margins; the unloading of influential cliques and the covering of important lines of short sales, &c., &c. Influences of this kind are very frequently sufficient of themselves to control the market for a considerable period in direct opposition to the tendency indicated by external conditions. It is, however, no easy matter to form a correct conclusion as to the drift resulting from this set of factors. They are so concealed and so changeful, and the symptoms are so vague, that it requires long experience, added to unusual sagacity, to determine what may be the tendency resulting from the complex action and counteraction of this set of conditions. Some exceptional operators enjoy an instinctive faculty for weighing these shadowy indications with almost unerring certainty. Such men usually care little about outside influences, except so far as they may affect the market for the moment. From the nature of the case, their transactions are apt to be brief ones, and follow quickly the momentary course of the market They are reckoned among the most sagacious speculators, and are usually very successful. But their success is the result of a special natural gift,