A bull market which is full of scale buying orders encounters “support,” so-called, on declines. Bears are timid about driving down prices, because they are continually “losing their stocks.” They say that “very little stock comes out on declines”; hence there is a certain appearance of caution in the way the market goes down, and the activity of trade shows, in a broad way, a falling off at lower prices. On the advances, however, a following is obtained and activity increases. Toward the end of the bull market a change is noticeable. Prices go down easily and on larger transactions, while advances are sluggish and opposition is met at higher levels where profit-taking orders have been placed. The very day when scale buying orders in a stock are withdrawn can oftentimes be distinguished. In a bear market, “pressure” appears in place of “support.” The scale orders are mostly to sell as the market rises. Only a small following of purchasers is obtainable on advances, hence the activity of business, in a general way, falls off as prices go up. The end of the bear market is marked by the reappearance of “support” and the removal of “pressure,” so that prices rebound quickly and sharply from declines. The common assumption is that this “support” or “pressure” is supplied by “manipulators.” But it is quite as likely to result from the scale operations of hundreds of different persons, whose mental make-up prevents them from buying or selling in the “impulsive” way. VIII—The Mental Attitude of the Individual In previous chapters we have seen that many, if not most, of the eccentricities of speculative markets, commonly charged to manipulation, are in fact due to the peculiar psychological conditions which surround such markets. Especially, and more than all else together, these erratic fluctuations are the result of the efforts of traders to operate, not on the basis of facts, nor on their own judgment as to the effect of facts on prices, but on what they believe will be the probable effect of facts or rumors on the minds of other traders. This mental attitude opens up a broad field of conjecture, which is not limited by any definite boundaries of fact or common sense. Yet it would be foolish to assert that assuming a position in the market based on what others will do is a wrong attitude. It is confusing to the uninitiated, and first efforts to work on such a plan are almost certain to be disastrous; but for the experienced it becomes a successful, though of course never a certain, method. A child’s first efforts to use a sharp tool are likely to result in bloodshed, but the same tool may trace an exquisite carving in the hands of an expert. What, then, should be the mental attitude of the intelligent buyer and seller of securities?