Here’s an odd observation (not mine): when people are offered 70% returns they think it’s a scam and majority will avoid investing in the venture. When they’re offered a 200% return, however, they break down and pay up!
Just watched NewsRadio, episode “Stocks” (every sitcom has an episode about stocks, right?).
Beth, the secretary, got several stock tips from billionaire station owner Jimmy James and instead of following them, she sold the tips to someone else.
Beth: I don’t understand. All I did was sell someone something I didn’t even own in the first place that wasn’t worth anything.
Jimmy: Like I said, welcome to the world of high finance!
Re-reading Reminiscences of a Stock Operator by Edwin Lefèvre, here’s a possibly relevant excerpt from the book:
One day I saw in the Paris Herald a dispatch from New York that Smelters had declared an extra dividend. They had run up the price of the stock and the entire market had come back quite strong. Of course that changed everything for me in Aix. The news simply meant that the bull cliques were still fighting desperately against conditions – against common sense and against common honesty, for they knew what was coming and were resorting to such schemes to put up the market in order to unload stocks before the storm struck them. It is possible they really did not believe the danger was as serious or as close at hand as I thought. The big men of the Street are as prone to be wishful thinkers as the politicians or the plain suckers. I myself can’t work that way. In a speculator such an attitude is fatal. Perhaps a manufacturer of securities or a promoter of new enterprises can afford to indulge in hope-jags.
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