The next day Anaconda opened below 296. Oliver Black, who was waiting
for a further rally, had come down early to be Johnny-on-the-spot when
the stock crossed 320. I don’t know how much of it he was long of or
whether he was long of it all. But he didn’t laugh when he saw the
opening prices, nor later in the day when the stock broke still more
and the report came back to us in Palm Beach that there was no market
for it at all.
Of course that was all the confirmation any man needed. My growing
paper profit kept reminding me that I was right, hour by hour.
Naturally I sold some more stocks. Everything! It was a bear market.
They were all going down. The next day was Friday, Washington’s
Birthday. I couldn’t stay in Florida and fish because I had put out a
very fair short line, for me. I was needed in New York. Who needed me?
I did! Palm Beach was too far, too remote. Too much valuable time was
lost telegraphing back and forth.
I left Palm Beach for New York. On Monday I had to lie in St. Augustine
three hours, waiting for a train. There was a broker’s office there,
and naturally I had to see how the market was acting while I was
waiting. Anaconda had broken several points since the last trading day.
As a matter of fact, it didn’t stop going down until the big break that
fall.
I got to New York and traded on the bear side for about four months.
The market had frequent rallies as before, and I kept covering and
putting them out again. I didn’t, strictly speaking, sit tight.
Remember, I had lost every cent of the three hundred thousand dollars
I made out of the San Francisco earthquake break. I had been right,
and nevertheless had gone broke. I was now playing safe--because after
being down a man enjoys being up, even if he doesn’t quite make the
top. _The way to make money is to make it. The way to make big money is
to be right at exactly the right time._ In this business a man has to
think of both theory and practice. A speculator must not be merely a
student, he must be both a student and a speculator.
I did pretty well, even if I can now see where my campaign was
tactically inadequate. When summer came the market got dull. It was
a cinch that there would be nothing doing in a big way until well
along in the fall. Everybody I knew had gone or was going to Europe.
I thought that would be a good move for me. So I cleaned up. When I
sailed for Europe I was a trifle more than three-quarters of a million
to the good. To me that looked like some balance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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