Investiture

“ The word 'invested' in itself imports a restrictive qualification. When speaking of the capital of a business corporation or partnership, such as the act deals with, 'to invest' imports a laying out of money, or money's worth, either by an individual in acquiring an interest in the concern with a view to obtaining income or profit from the conduct of its business, or by the concern itself in acquiring something of permanent use in the business ”

“ Their holdings of investment securities are kept well within the limits set by their aggregate capital, surplus, and savings funds, and their method of handling commercial business, based as it is on accurate knowledge of their customer's operations and upon the lien upon produce heretofore described, prevents their acceptance, through ignorance, of investment securities under commercial disguise. ”

“ Under the head of investment of Capital will be considered stock of every description, all Implements of Husbandry, and other Articles which may be applicable to the purposes of pn>ductive industry, or which may be necessary for the establishment of the Settler on the Land where he is to be located. The amount of any Half-pay or Pension which the applicant may receive from Government, and which he may be prepared to invest as before mentioned, will also be considered as so much Capital. ”

“ My accumulations had not been invested, and as I had in my business no use for capital, the money remained idle in bank.
Crossing the ferry one morning I was joined by a friend in the employ of a Stock Exchange firm, then well known, but since retired from business.
I had been thinking of an investment and spoke to him on the subject, telling him the amount of money I had to invest. I had in mind the buying of some good bonds. ”

“ Special attention will be paid to the requirements of a business surplus and of the private investor. In the field of private [22] investment two distinct classes can be recognized—those who are dependent upon income from investments and those who are not. Both classes will be considered. For the investment of a business surplus, safety, convertibility, and stability of price are the qualities to be emphasized; for investors dependent upon income, safety and a high return; and for those not dependent upon income, a high return and prospect of appreciation in value. ”

“ Some of his own holdings were imperilled, and the man was working like some high-geared, delicate, strong machine—strung to full tension, going at full speed, accurate, never hesitating, with the proper word and decision and act ready and prompt as clockwork. Stocks and bonds, loans and mortgages, margins and securities—here was a world of finance, and there was no room in it for the human world or the world of nature. ”

“ For our present purpose it is enough to have shown that the capital, which is the stock-in-trade of finance, is not a fraudulent claim to take toll of the product of industry, but an essential part of the foundation on which industry is built. ”

“ Here then is a mode of investing capital by which the proprietor may insure himself not only an annual interest, the ratio of which would augment every year in the most astonishing progression, but by which the capital itself also would experience an advance still more rapid and extraordinary. Any person, therefore, who has the means of embarking in this speculation, could not fail with common attention to realize a large fortune in a few years. ”

“ As each office, also, has business special to itself, with its own peculiarities, its own interests, and its own mode of investment, any detailed statement might be dangerous, and form the groundwork for rivals to copy or to criticise. The points of chief note are the capital, the amount of liabilities, and the annual returns; and if the endeavour were made to show the funds in proportion to the risks, instead of endeavouring to procure a large show of business at any price, the object of ambition would be the accumulation of capital. ”

“ It is very common, for example, when he wishes to make a permanent investment and has no thought of reselling, to find him purchasing [16] securities which possess in a high degree the quality of convertibility. ”

“ I, says debt stock, encourage industry, by taking way your money; and I, says bank stock, by pouring money into your pockets. When, by theory or experience, has it ever been said, that either the redundancy of money, or the loss of earnings, was an encouragement to industry? If the calculation of a false opinion, that industry enjoys her own earnings, is the best mode to which all orders, titled or stock, can resort for her encouragement, it is evident that the mode would be improved, by making the opinion true. Fulfilment would be a stronger excitement to industry, than disappointed hope. ”

“ Why invest in property that does not return four per cent., when we can now get twenty or thirty?"
"You are right, and you are wrong. Our capital brings in, it is true, the interest you name, but at the same time we run the risk of losing it. ”

“ The capital of those who live on the interest of their own fortunes has generally sought and found some fixed investment, such as the public funds, mortgages, or the bonds of public companies, which investment, except under peculiar temptations or necessities, is not changed. ”

“ At present, they do not seek investment outside of corporate limits, and, of course, the money they have been intrusted with, must be about all invested, and cannot be called idle money, or there could be no interest paid to its owners. ”

“ I wanted to look at a world where banking accounts and dividends were unknown, and stocks and shares something not to be considered. I wanted to see what people were like who had to scramble for a living—to scramble, in fact, for the crumbs that fall from tables such as mine. ”

“ The capital investor — the individual who in industry loans and risks his capital or a part of it — receives for his capital a return in the form of interest; but he receives something more. As an investor, he becomes entitled to a voice in the control of the industry in which his investment is made. The life or labor investor — the worker who in industry loans and risks life, or gives to industry that part of it described as labor — 'receives for his labor, which is the use of his life and skill for the time in which labor is given, a return in the form of wages. ”

“ Investment is a pecuniary transaction, and its aim is pecuniary gain,—gain in terms of value and ownership. Invested wealth is capital, a pecuniary magnitude, measured in terms of value and determined in respect of its magnitude by a valuation which proceeds on an appraisement of the gain expected from the ownership of this invested wealth. In modern business practice, capital is distinguished into two coördinate categories of assets, [Pg 353] tangible and intangible. ”

“ It is not the intention, from the foregoing, to draw the conclusion that equities under no circumstances are to be regarded as investments, because many of our bank and railroad stocks, and even some of our public-utility and industrial stocks, have attained a stability and permanence of value and possess sufficiently long dividend records to justify their consideration when investments are contemplated; but it is essential that the investor should have a thorough understanding of the distinction involved. ”

“ My money is invested in various ways. Besides the ordinary forms of investment, stocks, bonds, and mortgages, I have set up two or three young men, whom I thought worthy, in business, and require them to send in monthly statements of their business to me. ”

“ Each of them, and a large number of other like organizations—insurance companies, savings banks, and trusts—hold as investments of capital stock, earnings, and profits, and as trustees for minors, widows, individuals, copartnerships, and corporations too numerous to mention, resident in the United States and elsewhere, large amounts of real estate, situated in the various States of the Federal Union, and amounting in aggregate value to hundreds of millions of dollars. ”

“ We gathered things together, an investment here, and an investment there, a few dozens of a vintage of this year or that, but they would all be dispersed in the end—by a sale resultant on failure, or by death, against whichever success is powerless. ”

“ If all users of estate planning computers had relations with the same firm, all these minor fluctuations would be in the same direction for all of them. Although the investment mixes would be far from identical, they would be more alike than economic principles require. On the other hand, the investor who has the courage to associate himself with an alternate set of analyses may be comparatively alone in the course he chooses. ”

“ Invested capital—that is, capital sunk in enterprises which society will recognise as belonging to the old order—will take the alarm and fall in value enormously, while, on the other hand, capital seeking investment will welcome an outlet which has long been its sorest need. Invested capital will in its opposition be further weakened by another consideration. ”

“ If you will drop your present schemes, if you will be content to share with these men and children a portion of your profits, to let them toil eight hours instead of twelve per day, and if on every Saturday you will give to them one full long day in God's dear sunlight, I will invest the amount of capital necessary to cover all which you as a body have invested, and I will stand beside you in your mill. ”

“ If you can tell me of anything better I will sell all of my own Great Midwestern stocks and bonds and buy that instead. I have my own money in Great Midwestern. There’s another Galt you left out. As head of a great railway system I am a seller of securities to investors all over the world. That is how we find the capital to build our things. But as an individual I am a buyer of those same securities. I sell to everybody with one hand and buy for myself all that I can with the other hand. ”

“ Capital's contribution to industry is in the nature of material substance loaned by way of investment. Its possessor may be any kind of person, from a social parasite or ne'er-do-well, who is the inheritor of a fortune, to an infant totally incapable of any service to industry, and whose property is necessarily held in trust. ”

“ I like any man who can take his beating and smile. Yes, I am willing to advise an investment. I know of a dozen splendid securities that I can conscientiously recommend as a safe investment, although, in the event of the inevitable settlement that must follow the war and our national orgy of extravagance and high prices, I advise you frankly to wait awhile before taking on any securities. ”

“ The facilities which these Joint Stock Companies offer for the investment of capital, even of the smallest amount, the temptations which the prospect of large profits hold out, and the low interest obtained on national stock of every description, have attracted a vast body of capitalists, small and great, who have subscribed to these undertakings with the real intention of investment. ”

“ The big industrial combinations in America have contributed to the business of the trust companies as registrars or transfer agents for capital stock, agents for the issue of bonds and payment of interest thereon, agents for underwriting and distributing new securities, and depositories of securities and cash under plans of reorganization or while held in escrow. ”

“ In England, owing partly to natural, partly to artificial circumstances, such as the establishment of many new banks of issue, large amounts of capital were ready to go into foreign investment and speculation. ”

“ If the circumstances of society are such as to furnish a ready investment of disposable capital; (as for instance in London, where the public funds and other securities, of undoubted stability, and affording great advantages for receiving the interest without trouble and realizing the principal without difficulty when required, tempt all persons who have sums of importance lying idle, to invest them on their own account without the intervention of any middleman;) ”

“ Our moneyed kings may have enriched themselves by stock jobbing, but this precarious procedure requires large capital, and the few enormous fortunes accumulated are merely the monuments marking the graves of thousands of foolhardy unfortunates caught in the vortex of speculation. ”

“ The ideal investment may be defined as one combining ample security of principal and interest, a good rate of income, ready convertibility into cash, and reasonable promise of appreciation in value. Measured by the requirements of this definition, the conclusion seems justified that well-selected railroad bonds, if purchased under favorable money-market conditions, afford a highly desirable form of investment. ”

“ Suppose that the information afforded by public quotations on the stock and produce exchanges were wiped from the slate of human knowledge. How would the average man, how even would a man with the intelligence and foresight of a Pierpont Morgan, determine how new capital should be invested? ”

“ The Inventory of Movable Property or Securities—The capital represented by movable properties, stocks, bonds, shares, etc., is the only kind of capital which lends itself to statistics—The great groups of movable properties: National Funds, Railway Shares, Insurance Companies, Foreign Banks, Mortgage Companies, and agricultural and industrial undertakings. ”

“ I know the intrinsic value of the chief securities in the market, so, by lending conservatively and keeping an eye on the Stock Exchange, I can realise at once in case of a decline if sufficient margin is not instantly placed in my possession to protect the loan. ”