If Smith and Jones have a verbal agreement, which afterwards turns out to be greatly to Jones’ advantage, Smith’s recollection is that it was merely a loose understanding which could be cancelled at any time, while Jones remembers it to have been a definite legal contract, perfectly enforceable if it had only been written. Talleyrand said that language was given us for the purpose of concealing thought. Likewise many seem to think that logic was given us for the purpose of backing up our desires. Few persons are so introspective as to be able to tell where this bias in favor of their own interests begins and where it leaves off. Still fewer bother to make the effort to tell. To a great extent we train our judgment to lend itself to our selfish interests. The question with us is not so much whether we have the facts of a situation correctly in mind, as whether we can “put it over.” When it comes to buying and selling stocks, there is no such thing as “putting it over.” The market is relentless. It cannot be budged by our sophistries. It will respond exactly to the forces and personalities which are working upon it, with no more regard for our opinions than if we couldn’t vote. We cannot work for our own interests as in other lines of business—we can only fit our interests to the facts. To make the greatest success it is necessary for the trader to forget entirely his own position _in_ the market, his profits or losses, the relation of present prices to the point where he bought or sold, and to fix his thoughts upon the position _of_ the market. If the market is going down the trader must sell, no matter whether he has a profit or a loss, whether he bought a year ago or two minutes ago. How far the average trader is from attaining this point of view is quickly seen from his conversation, and it is also true that a great deal of the literature of speculation absolutely fails to reach this conception. “You have five points profit—you had better take it,” advises the broker. Perhaps so, if you know nothing about the market; but if you understand the market the time to take your profit is when the upward movement shows signs of culminating, regardless of your own deal. “Stop your losses; let your profits run” is a saying which appeals to the novice as the essence of wisdom. But the whole question is _where_ to stop the losses and _how far_ to let the profits run. In other words, what is the _market_ going to do? If you can tell this your personal losses and profits will take care of themselves. Here is a man who has done a great deal of figuring and has proved to his own satisfaction that seven points is the correct profit to take in Union Pacific, while losses should be limited to two and one-half points. Nothing could be more foolish than these arbitrary figures. He is trying to make the market fit itself around his own trades, instead of adapting his trades to the market.