The Psychology of Speculation. English-only reading by default; switch among English, Chinese, and Spanish, or compare languages side by side.
This chapter examines BOOKS TEACH WISDOM, BUT EXPERIENCE IS A MORE PRACTICAL INSTRUCTOR, using the author’s early-twentieth-century investment framework to explain how investors were expected to judge security quality, income, risk, and market conditions. It opens from the chapter’s own discussion: It may be set down as an axiomatic truth that no one can learn the art of making money in the stock market by reading statistics, charts, precedents, theoretical disquisitions and instructions. Of course it is not needful, nor would it be any more practicable than it is necessary, to set forth any fixed rules or maxims governing one’s procedure in any other line of business or any other profession, since no one could
Readers studying financial history, investment education, and the chapter’s specific subject—auction bridge, keep the eye on the ball, net return—will get the most from this section. It is not suitable as a modern trading or investment checklist.
Read this chapter as historical investment education. The market rules, disclosure practices, securities, commissions, interest-rate conditions, and investor protections around auction bridge, keep the eye on the ball, net return may differ sharply from modern markets.