Between the extremes will be found long stretches in which capitalists have very little cause to conceal their position. Having accumulated their lines as low as possible, they are then willing to be known as the leaders of the upward movement and have every reason to be perfectly open in their buying. This condition continues until they are ready to sell. Likewise, having sold as much as they desire, they have no reason to conceal their position further, even though a subsequent decline may run for months or a year. It is during a long upward movement that the “lamb” makes money, because he accepts facts as facts, while the professional trader is often found fighting the advance and losing heavily because of his over-development of cynicism and suspicion. The successful trader eventually learns when to invert his natural mental processes and when to leave them in their usual position. Often he develops a sort of instinct which could scarcely be reduced to cold print. But in the hands of the tyro this form of reasoning is exceedingly dangerous, because it permits of putting an alternate construction on any event. Bull news either (1) is significant of a rising trend of prices, or (2) indicates that “they” are trying to make a market to sell on. Bad news may indicate either a genuinely bearish situation or a desire to accumulate stocks at low prices. The inexperienced operator is therefore left very much at sea. He is playing with the professional’s edged tools and is likely to cut himself. Of what use is it for him to try to apply his reason to stock market conditions when every event may be doubly interpreted? Indeed, it is doubtful if the professional’s distrust of the obvious is of much benefit to him in the long run. Most of us have met those deplorable mental wrecks, often found among the “chairwarmers” in brokers’ offices, whose thinking machinery seems to have become permanently demoralized as a result of continued acrobatics. They are always seeking an “ulterior motive” in everything. They credit—or debit—Morgan and Rockefeller with the smallest and meanest trickery and ascribe to them the most artful duplicity in matters which those “high financiers” wouldn’t stoop to notice. The continual reversal of the mental engine sometimes deranges its mechanism. Probably no better general rule can be laid down than the brief one, “Stick to common sense.” Maintain a balanced, receptive mind and avoid abstruse deductions. A few further suggestions may, however, be offered: