When the market looks weakest, when the news is at the worst, when bearish prognostications are most general, is the time to buy, as every schoolboy knows; but if a man has in mind a picture of a flood of stocks pouring out from the four quarters of the globe, with no buyers, because of some desperately bad news which is just coming over the ticker, it is almost a mental impossibility for him to get up the courage to plunge in and buy. If, on the other hand, he conceives that They are just giving the market a final smash to facilitate covering a gigantic line of short stocks, he has courage to buy. His view may be right or wrong, but at least he avoids buying at the top and selling at the bottom, and he has nerve to buy a weak market and sell a strong one. The reason for the haziness of the “They” conception in the average trader’s mind is that he is only concerned with Them as They manifest Themselves through the stock market. As to who They are he feels a mild and detached curiosity; but as to Their manifestations in the market he is vitally and financially interested. It is on the latter point, therefore, that he concentrates his thoughts. But inasmuch as definite, painstaking analysis of a situation is always better than a hazy general notion of it, the trader or investor would do much better to rid his mind of Them. The word “They” means nothing until it has an antecedent; and to use it continually without having any antecedent in mind is slipshod language, which stands for slipshod thinking. They, in the sense of the big banking interests, may be working directly against Them in the sense of individual manipulators; the manipulator, again, may be trying to trap Them in the sense of floor traders. A genuine knowledge of the technical condition of the market cannot be summed up in any offhand declaration about what They are going to do. You cannot determine the attitude toward the market of every individual who is interested in it, but you can roughly classify the sources from which buying and selling are likely to come, the motives which are likely to actuate the various classes, and the character of the long interest and short interest. In brief, after enough study and observation, you can always have in mind some kind of an antecedent for Them, and must have it, if you base your operations on technical conditions. IV—Confusing the Present with the Future—Discounting It is axiomatic that inexperienced traders and investors, and indeed a majority of the more experienced as well, are continually trying to speculate on past events. Suppose, for example, railroad earnings as published are showing constant large increases in net. The novice reasons, “Increased earnings mean increased amounts applicable to the payment of dividends. Prices should rise. I will buy.”