Speculator

“ I would never have disposed of the Concession as a speculator disposes of a valuable right to a company—for cash and shares, to grow rich eventually if possible, but at any rate to put some money at once in his pocket. ”

“ The professional speculator, who has the right sort of head, sufficient capital, patience, perseverance, coolness, and a business-like aptitude for laying down the elaborate machinery that is necessary for mercantile success, may succeed. In the following chapters it is our intention always to make this reservation, and in speaking of the speculator, who must always lose in the long run, we refer to the ordinary run of men, whom we will designate as haphazard speculators. ”

“ Or on a larger scale—as the successful speculator sweeps to himself the mass of notes and bills, all as good as gold, for which he has set every penny of his worldly means upon the stake, and feels with a thrill which makes him clutch the precious paper, that had things not turned out as, thank Heaven! ”

“ The safe enterpriser explores cautiously, ventures at first a little, and increases the venture with the ratio of experience. A speculator looks out upon the new region, as upon a far-away landscape, whose features are softened to beauty by distance; upon a hope, he stakes that, which, if it wins, will make him; and if it loses, will ruin him. When the alternatives are victory, or utter destruction, a battle may, sometimes, still be necessary. But commerce has no such alternatives; only speculation proceeds upon them. ”

“ A speculator may stand by and view with unruffled complacency the most enormous profits of others in securities that he never owned, but if one of his own pet stocks continues to advance after he has sold out, it not only reflects the error of his judgment, but the remorse he suffers in contemplating the additional sum he might have made dampens all the pleasure of reflecting upon the profit he actually did make. ”

“ A speculator takes pride to himself as the promoter of his country's prosperity, who employs a number of hands in the manufacture of articles avowedly destitute of use, or subservient only to the unhallowed cravings of luxury and ostentation. ”

“ Thus without real possession, frequently without going to the expense of a single dollar, the speculator becomes owner of the goods, and if the consumer wishes to buy any of them he must apply to the speculator and pay the price he demands. The speculator receives into one hand the money given him by the consumer and after abstracting a portion as large as possible, which he puts into his own pocket, he hands over the remainder with the other hand to the producer. In this way the speculator, without labor, without benefiting the community, becomes wealthy and influential. ”

“ That it is absolutely necessary that a speculator should possess capital may be illustrated from several points of view, and although we may become, perhaps, tedious by repetition, as in Chapter III., for instance, when speaking of the temperament of a speculator, the time spent in double reflections by the uninitiated may prevent shipwreck, at least in the first stages. ”

“ In parting company, for the present, with the haphazard speculator, to whom we have yet more to say worthy of his attention, we would strongly recommend him if he finds it impossible to leave it alone altogether, to keep his own counsel. ”

“ First, the professional speculator, who knows his markets and makes a business of buying and selling future risks; such men perform a great service in handling our seasonal crops and in other directions, and are entitled to a reasonable profit. ”

“ Speculators may be divided into three classes which about embraces all the phases of speculation. First, we have the legitimate speculator who spends all or some of his surplus capital in taking off the market what he [133] believes will give him a gain by holding it for some time. That is the legitimate speculator who is a benefit to the community as a leveller up of prices. ”

“ On occasions when a considerable sum of money is required to be laid out by the owner and his friends, it is usual to call in the assistance of some clever speculator to effect their investments to the best advantage with solvent men, and also to watch the movements in the market, and closely and continuously observe who are the principal opposers and supporters of the horse in which they are specially interested. ”

“ After every great rise comes a fall, and the secret of such success as is possible lies in the buyer getting out at or near the top and in again at the bottom. It is obvious that a speculator must watch for the ever-changing circumstances to reveal themselves and act accordingly. ”

“ The illegitimate speculator is the one who starts with a small capital and with some method, with the idea of increasing it upon a system of incurring risks which, in the ordinary course of the market he may operate in, will enable him in case he has wrongly calculated the course of prices, to pay his losses and go on again. ”

“ In the discussions given to the speculator and his function some thought is commonly given to the question of the "legitimacy" of the speculator's traffic. The legitimate speculator is held to earn his gain by services of an economic kind rendered the community. The recourse to this epithet, "legitimate," is chiefly of interest as showing that the tacit postulate of a natural order is still in force. ”

“ The speculator’s sole aim in the operation is the profit, towards which he cuts his way, regardless of the nature of the obstacles to be overcome, just as the knife is plunged into the flesh, severing the arteries, muscles, and sinews that surround the bone which it is the object to reach and saw through. ”

“ A speculator enters into a losing trade, and dissipates his capital; and then he extorts from me and from my neighbours wine and corn of sufficient value, not only to repair his losses, but afford him a profit, and this is represented as a gain to the country at large.
L.: Your representative having come to this conclusion, you have nothing more to do but to deliver up to me the six tuns of wine which I demand, and sell the remaining fourteen tuns to the best advantage. ”

“ Whether there be any more rise or not left in public securities as a body after the turn of the half-year,—we are speaking from a bull point of view, as that is the way in which the public, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, operate,—we should always recommend a speculator to pack up his traps and go right away, whether he has won or lost on balance. ”

“ The speculator will, for his own sake, keep his misfortunes to himself, and so the new men come on, never knowing how many have gone irretrievably into the gulf before them until they have passed the fatal barrier of actual experience from which, in all but a very few cases, there are vestigia nulla retrorsum. ”

“ If he is rich enough to carry his goods without selling until the day arrives when the speculator is obliged to deliver those he has guaranteed to the purchaser, then the speculator will not be able to get the goods at as low prices as he had hoped, and will be obliged to buy them at the producer's price, and lose money upon them, thus being robbed instead of robbing. ”

“ To many a venturesome speculator who has unfortunately placed himself upon the wrong side of the market, it is ominous of a crisis in his affairs which must be promptly met if he is not to be overtaken by ruin, perhaps by disgrace. ”

“ To fix upon this sum is the great object of every dealer and speculator in every commodity whatever, and about which he must, of course, exercise his private judgement. A reflecting mind, far from being astonished that there are now and then errors in speculation, must feel much greater astonishment that there are so few ”

“ But a Stock Exchange speculator like Schwartzbrod, equipped with the sneaking slyness of an avaricious but ignorant peasant, becomes a mere predatory beast, producing nothing; fattening on the woes and losses of others ”

“ He then shows, what I have outlined elsewhere, that the market is larger than any speculator or group of speculators, and, if this was true in 1848, I think it will not be disputed that it is quite true to-day.
Continuing, Mill says: “The operations of speculative dealers are useful to the public whenever profitable to themselves. The interest of the speculators as a body coincide with the interests of the public; and as they can only fail to serve the public interest in proportion as they miss their own, the best way to promote the one is to leave them to pursue the other in perfect freedom. ”

“ The wisdom of man, in my humble opinion, cannot at this time devise a plan, by which the credit of paper money would be long supported; consequently, depreciation keeps pace with the quantity of the emission, and articles for which it is exchanged rise in a greater ratio than the sinking value of the money. Wherein then is the farmer, the planter, the artisan benefited? An evil equally great is the door it immediately opens for speculation, by which the least designing, and perhaps most valuable part of the community are preyed upon by the more knowing and crafty speculators. ”

“ Business cannot be conducted without making contracts entering into the future, and that is speculation. The builder who contracts to build you a home is a speculator; the manufacturer who agrees to deliver a thousand cases of cotton goods sixty days hence is dealing in futures, and all operations extending into the future are unavoidably of a speculative character. Even marriage is often called a lottery. It is quite impossible and thoroughly stupid to try to eliminate speculation, for it is an essential element in all business 983transactions, except those for cash. ”

“ They buy what they do not want without turning a hair, whilst denouncing as a speculator, dangerous to himself and the community, one who sells what he has not got. They may exercise their judgment in selecting stocks and shares that will rise, but consider it heinous to select those which are likely to fall. ”

“ The knowing speculator has taken his profit, and sees with grim satisfaction the shares gradually declining in value, until they arrive at the position of more than one- third of existing companies which are now quoted at a discount. ”

“ The ordinary speculator who buys when prices are low, to sell again at a profit, without himself being able to influence the rise or fall of price, is a pure gambler who thinks he can foresee the changes of the market price in the immediate [59] future. ”

“ And the Chicago man's letter, in substance, reads: "No!"
"Outsider" Has No Chance.
Speculation, for the most part, as in the case of this young man, means for the average intelligence a possibility for placing money in a side line where quick and profitable returns may be expected, wholly independent of the person's occupation. To the man who knows what the best of the speculative market is, the necessity for all of the time and attention and best judgment of the speculator is imperative. It is a business in which only the best business methods succeed. ”

“ The manner in which the wealth created by the toiling millions, passed through the channels of trade, into the possession of a few wealthy speculators, was illustrated by pictures and printed explanations, in almost endless variety, so that even the most obtuse observers, could not fail to get a clear idea of the practical workings of a system of commercial exchange, under the operation of which, interest, profit and rent were always added to the market price of the product, every time it changed hands. ”

“ The advocates of speculating say that the speculator plays an important and necessary role in the great drama of political economy; that his gains are the results of superior sagacity, deeper insight, prompter decision and more adventurous daring. ”

“ When his intention is to plunder the producer, he begins to sell certain goods that he does not possess, at a price lower than the current market rates, promising to deliver them to the purchasers a fortnight, a month or three months later than the date of sale. The purchaser of course, buys of the speculator because he asks lower prices. ”

“ They, in fact, convert to their own benefit the high price produced by the speculations of the others, leaving to these the loss resulting from the recoil. It is not to be denied, therefore, that speculators may enrich themselves by other people's loss. But it is by the losses of other speculators. ”

“ But with speculators the direction should be, “Do as they do, but not as they say.”
The chief form of speculation is in stocks. These stocks may be railroads, mines, wheat, corn, cotton, wool, tobacco, oil, gas, coal, and, in fact, almost any industry where capital has constantly vacillating values. We have room to mention only a very few:
942. City Bonds.—These are generally among the best securities for investment. The element of speculation comes in when they are bought below par in the belief of an early rise. ”

“ They furnish the large sums which, from time to time, are required by the Government, the State, the town, the manufacturer, the tradesman, and the speculator, and to each of these—especially the speculator—the tremendous development of this country is due. ”

“ When they extend their views to a further extent than they can command, and found their calculations on contingencies, they become gamesters of that class which is held in horror under the name of speculators: and hence arises a somewhat indistinct dread and dislike of all speculation; while the fact is, no exchange whatever could go on without more or less real speculation. The farmer must speculate on the seasons; the manufacturer on tastes and fashions, and on the supply of raw material; the merchant must speculate on war and peace, and all domestic and much foreign policy. ”