When a man makes his play in a commodity market he must not permit himself set opinions. He must have an open mind and flexibility. It is not wise to disregard the message of the tape, no matter what your opinion of crop conditions or of the probable demand may be. I recall how I missed a big play just by trying to anticipate the starting signal. I felt so sure of conditions that I thought it was not necessary to wait for the line of least resistance to define itself. I even thought I might help it arrive, because it looked as if it merely needed a little assistance.
I was very bullish on cotton. It was hanging around twelve cents, running up and down within a moderate range. It was in one of those in-between places and I could see it. I knew I really ought to wait. But I got to thinking that if I gave it a little push it would go beyond the upper resistance point.
I bought fifty thousand bales. Sure enough, it moved up. And sure enough, as soon as I stopped buying it stopped going up. Then it began to settle back to where it was when I began buying it. I got out and it stopped going down. I thought I was now much nearer the starting signal, and presently I thought I’d start it myself again. I did. The same thing happened. I bid it up, only to see it go down when I stopped. I did this four or five times until I finally quit in disgust. It cost me about two hundred thousand dollars. I was done with it. It wasn’t very long after that when it began to go up and never stopped till it got to a price that would have meant a killing for me -- if I hadn't been in such a great hurry to start.
This experience has been the experience of so many traders so many times that I can give this rule: In a narrow market, when prices are not getting anywhere to speak of but move within a narrow range, there is no sense in trying to anticipate what the next big movement is going to be up or down. The thing to do is to watch the market, read the tape to determine the limits of the get-nowhere prices, and make up your mind that you will not take an interest until the price breaks through the limit in either direction. A speculator must concern himself with making money out of the market and not with insisting that the tape must agree with him. Never argue with it or ask it for reasons or explanations. Stock-market post-mortems don’t pay dividends.
Not so long ago I was with a party of friends. They got to talking wheat. Some of them were bullish and others bearish. Finally they asked me what I thought. Well, I had been studying the market for some time. I knew they did not want any statistics or analyses of conditions. So I said: “If you want to make some money out of wheat I can tell you how to do it.”
They all said they did and I told them, “If you are sure you wish to make money in wheat just you watch it. Wait. The moment it crosses $1.20 buy it and you will get a nice quick play in it!”
“Why not buy it now, at $1.14?” one of the party asked.
“Because I don’t know yet that it is going up at all.”
“Then why buy it at $1.20? It seems a mighty high price.”
“Do you wish to gamble blindly in the hope of getting a great big profit or do you wish to speculate intelligently and get a smaller but much more probable profit?”
They all said they wanted the smaller but surer profit, so I said, “Then do as I tell you. If it crosses $1.20 buy.”
As I told you, I had watched it a long time. For months, it sold between $1.10 and $1.20, getting nowhere in particular. Well, sir, one day it closed at above $1.19. I got ready for it. Sure enough, the next day it opened at $1.20-1/2, and I bought. It went to $1.21, to $1.22, to $1.23, to $1.25, and I went with it.
How I couldn’t have told you at the time just what was going on. I didn’t get any explanations about its behaviour during the course of the limited fluctuations. I couldn’t tell whether the breaking through the limit would be up through $1.20 or down through $1.10 though I suspected it would be up because there was not enough wheat in the world for a big break in prices.
As a matter of fact, it seems Europe had been buying quietly and a lot of traders had gone short of it at around $1.19. Owing to the European purchases and other causes, a lot of wheat had been taken out of the market, so that finally the big movement got started. The price went beyond the $1.20 mark. That was all the point I had and it was all I needed. I knew that when it crossed $1.20 it would be because the upward movement at last had gathered force to push it over the limit and something had to happen. In other words, by crossing $1.20 the line of least resistance of wheat prices was established. It was a different story then.
REFERENCE: Lefèvre, E. (1923). Reminiscences of a Stock Operator. New York: George H. Doran Company.
REFERENCE: Lefèvre, E. (1923). Reminiscences of a Stock Operator. New York: George H. Doran Company.
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