Late Night Reading

I have plenty of unread books on my bookshelf that I hope to get around to actually reading one day. Until then, I'll just admire their covers. 

One book, though, that I just started reading is Beating The Stock Market by R. W. McNeel. I have the much older version that was printed in 1927. I felt compelled to briefly share some of what I've read so far (emphasis mine): 

From Chapter 1:

"The greatest single route by which men of the present day try to beat the fundamental law of existence, try to get something for nothing, or get rich quick, is through our modern stock market....
There is something mysterious and magical about the idea of the stock market which appeals to the imagination....
It is indeed an interesting and attractive game, one which appeals to the imagination and the desire for adventure and about which a great deal of romance has been built up. Its mystery appeals to the human mind, and its apparent creation of wealth by magic makes its acquisition by the slow means of rendering service to society for it seem stupid. 
While this view of the stock market is all wrong, and any one who regards it in this idealistic light is destined to failure, it is not surprising that a great mass of people should be attracted to it as a means of acquiring wealth, or at least as a means of making money bring large returns....
Where the public in general does err is in thinking the market is a 'get rick quick scheme.' It is not a game which pays something for nothing, or much for little. It is a game which repays liberally careful study of the underlying conditions which cause stock-market fluctuations. But the reward is apt to be more or less commensurate with the effort put forth to master it. It is a game to be beaten, not by disregarding the fundamental law of existence, but by remembering the old law that in order to reap the rewards of this world one must give something of himself, of his time and efforts and abilities, in order to acquire them." 

From Chapter 2: 

"Those who win in speculation do not make a success of it because they take a chance. They win because before they take a chance they use every human power to eliminate risk. One of the most successful speculators in Wall Street says the reason he has made a fortune through the rise and fall of stock prices is that before buying he always investigates stocks and the stock markets with the greatest care. His success has been due not to the fact that he bought, and therefore assumed risk, but in that he investigated most carefully what he was buying before he took a chance."  

From Chapter 3: 

"One of the veterans of the 'street,' who has made a fortune in Wall Street and kept it, asked for the secret of success, said: 'Few gain sufficient experience in Wall Street to command success until they reach that period of life when they have one foot in the grave."

From Chapter 4: 

"To say that the way to make money in the stock market is to buy stocks when they are low and sell when they are high may seem so broad and unsatisfactory a rule as to be of no practical value in speculation. But in reality the difficulty is not in knowing when stocks are cheap and when they are dear. The chief reason speculators fail to buy when they are low and sell when they are high is that they have not the courage, the initiative, and will power to act on their knowledge. Lack of knowledge of values is a much less frequent cause of loss in the market than the lack of those other sterling qualities of character which are necessary to make a successful speculator. And without them, all the rules of success and all the knowledge of what ought to be done to make money by speculation in the stock market will be valueless....If one is emotional, if he lacks the power of independent thought and the power of will to act on his own knowledge, he should keep out of the stock market. If one is temperamental that he is carried away by the enthusiasm or depression of the moment, failing to act when he should act and acting when he should not, he should keep his money in the savings bank. Otherwise, some one will get it away from him." 

I haven't read any further in the book yet. It's amazing how these concepts were written back in the 1920s and yet are very much applicable to today's modernistic (aka electronic) markets. 

Source: McNeel, R. W. (1927). Beating The Stock Market. McNeel's Financial Services. Revised Edition, Ninth Printing

Amazon link to later edition