I told you I had ten thousand dollars when I was twenty, and my margin on that Sugar deal was over ten thousand. But I didn't always win. My plan of trading was sound enough and won oftener than it lost. If I had stuck to it I'd have been right perhaps as often as seven out of ten times. In fact, I always made money when I was sure I was right before I began. What beat me was not having brains enough to stick to my own game that is, to play the market only when I was satisfied that precedents favored my play.
I was so anxious to resume trading that I didn't lose a minute, but went to old man Fullerton and said to him, "Say, A. R., lend me five hundred dollars."
"Five hundred dollars?" he said, and frowned. "You know they'd expect you to keep up a 10 per cent margin, and that means one thousand dollars on one hundred shares. Much better to give you a credit"
"No," I said, "I don't want a credit here. I already owe the firm something. What I want is for you to lend me five hundred dollars so I can go out and get a roll and come back."
"How are you going to do it?" asked old A. R. "I'll go and trade in a bucket shop," I told him.
And then, too, if my order was fairly big my own sale would tend further to depress the price. In the bucket shop I didn't have to figure on the effect of my own trading. I lost in New York because the game was altogether different. It was not that I now was playing it legitimately that made me lose, but that I was playing it ignorantly.
He let me have it, and I went out of that office where the Boy Terror of the Bucket Shops, as they called him, had lost his pile. I couldn't go back home because the shops there would not take my business. New York was out of the question; there weren't any doing business at that time. They tell me that in the go's Broad Street and New Street were full of them. But there weren't any when I needed them in my business. So after some thinking I decided to go to St. Louis. I had heard of two concerns there that did an enormous business all through the Middle West. Their profits must have been huge. They had branch offices in dozens of towns. In fact I had been told that there were no concerns in the East to compare with them for volume of business. They ran openly and the best people traded there without any qualms. A fellow even told me that the owner of one of the concerns was a vice-president of the Chamber of Commerce but that couldn't have been in St. Louis. At any rate, that is where I went with my five hundred dollars to bring back a stake to use as margin in the office of A. R. Fullerton & Co., members of the New York Stock Exchange.
When I got to St. Louis I went to the hotel, washed up and went out to find the bucket shops. One was the
It didn't take me long to realise that there was something wrong with my play, but I couldn't spot the exact trouble. There were times when my system worked beautifully, and then, all of a sudden, nothing but one swat after another. I was only twenty-two, remember; not that I was so stuck on myself that I didn't want to know just where I was at fault, but that at that age nobody knows much of anything.
The people in the office were very nice to me. I couldn't plunge as I wanted to because of their margin requirements, but old A. R. Fullerton and the rest of the firm were so kind to me that after six months of active trading I not only lost all I had brought and all that I had made there but I even owed the firm a few hundreds.
I was so anxious to resume trading that I didn't lose a minute, but went to old man Fullerton and said to him, "Say, A. R., lend me five hundred dollars."
"Five hundred dollars?" he said, and frowned. "You know they'd expect you to keep up a 10 per cent margin, and that means one thousand dollars on one hundred shares. Much better to give you a credit"
"No," I said, "I don't want a credit here. I already owe the firm something. What I want is for you to lend me five hundred dollars so I can go out and get a roll and come back."
"How are you going to do it?" asked old A. R. "I'll go and trade in a bucket shop," I told him.
And then, too, if my order was fairly big my own sale would tend further to depress the price. In the bucket shop I didn't have to figure on the effect of my own trading. I lost in New York because the game was altogether different. It was not that I now was playing it legitimately that made me lose, but that I was playing it ignorantly.
He let me have it, and I went out of that office where the Boy Terror of the Bucket Shops, as they called him, had lost his pile. I couldn't go back home because the shops there would not take my business. New York was out of the question; there weren't any doing business at that time. They tell me that in the go's Broad Street and New Street were full of them. But there weren't any when I needed them in my business. So after some thinking I decided to go to St. Louis. I had heard of two concerns there that did an enormous business all through the Middle West. Their profits must have been huge. They had branch offices in dozens of towns. In fact I had been told that there were no concerns in the East to compare with them for volume of business. They ran openly and the best people traded there without any qualms. A fellow even told me that the owner of one of the concerns was a vice-president of the Chamber of Commerce but that couldn't have been in St. Louis. At any rate, that is where I went with my five hundred dollars to bring back a stake to use as margin in the office of A. R. Fullerton & Co., members of the New York Stock Exchange.
When I got to St. Louis I went to the hotel, washed up and went out to find the bucket shops. One was the
It didn't take me long to realise that there was something wrong with my play, but I couldn't spot the exact trouble. There were times when my system worked beautifully, and then, all of a sudden, nothing but one swat after another. I was only twenty-two, remember; not that I was so stuck on myself that I didn't want to know just where I was at fault, but that at that age nobody knows much of anything.
The people in the office were very nice to me. I couldn't plunge as I wanted to because of their margin requirements, but old A. R. Fullerton and the rest of the firm were so kind to me that after six months of active trading I not only lost all I had brought and all that I had made there but I even owed the firm a few hundreds.
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About the Author: Carlyle P. Paul is a writer that is nationally syndicated Learn Forex trends. Take this step to learn Forex Trading now. Grab a totally unique version of this article from the Uber Article Directory
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