100 to 1 in the Stock Market: A Distinguished Security Analyst Tells How to Make More of Your Investment Opportunities by Thomas William Phelps

CHAPTER I
Ask, and It Shall Be Given You
Five poor Arabs slept on the sand. A bright light woke them Out of it
came an angel.
“Each of you can have one wish,” the angel said.
“Praise be to Allah,” exulted the first Arab to catch his breath. “Give me
a donkey.”
Instantly a donkey stood at his side.
“Fool,” thought the second Arab. “He should have asked for more.”
“Give me ten donkeys,” the second Arab begged.
No sooner said than done. He had ten donkeys.
The third Arab had heard and seen how the first two had fared.
“To Allah all things are possible,” he said. “Give me a caravan with a
hundred camels, a hundred donkeys, tents, rugs, food, wine, and servants.”
They came so fast that the third Arab was ashamed to be seen in his rags
before such an entourage. But his shame did not last long. Deftly his
servants dressed him in robes befitting his new status.
The fourth Arab was more than ready when his turn came.
“Make me a king,” he commanded.
So quickly did the crown appear on his head that he bruised his
knuckles scratching where an instant before there had been nothing but an
itch. The palace gardens stretched out before him almost as far as the eye
could see, and the palace turrets reached so high their pennants were lost in
the desert haze.
Having seen his companions in misery ask too little, the fifth Arab
resolved to make no such mistake.
“Make me Allah!” he ordered.
In a flash he found himself naked on the sand, covered with leprous
sores.
The moral, of course, is that those of us who ask little of life get little.
Those who ask much get much. Those who ask too much get nothing.
But strange as it may seem, human greed being what it is, most of us
make the mistake of asking for one donkey. Few ask too much.
Nowhere is this more true than in investing. Most try to make a few
points quickly on their stock market speculations, or content themselves
with 4 or 5 percent on their savings. Not one in a thousand seriously plans
and acts as one must to make a fortune. Most do not believe they have a
chance. When they see others do it, they salve their egos by crying “graft”
or “inside information” or “born in the right bed” instead of trying to find
out how it was done. Even when fate puts the prize in their hands, they
throw it away, time after time. Some can’t resist the urge to cash in their
winnings, however small. Others sell a good stock to get into something
that seems better, perhaps because it is moving. Theirs is the fate of the dog
in Aesop’s fable. You remember, the dog lost the piece of meat in his mouth
by snapping at a seemingly larger piece reflected in the water.
Few businesses are more cursed by half-truths and specious maxims
than Wall Street. But even there, where the competition in such matters is
keenest, it would be hard to find a worse slogan than “You’ll never go broke
taking a profit.”
Fortunes are made by buying right and holding on. Now that Wall Street
is afflicted by having more business than it can handle, even brokers might
preach this gospel with much benefit to their customers and no harm to their
own long-range best interests. Few do.
Since 1932 more than 360 different securities have increased one
hundredfold in market value in the United States—not to some interim price
peak but to their value in 1971. Many have been much higher in prior years.
What nonsense it is to say that Opportunity knocks but once. That
beautiful lady has been banging incessantly on Everyman’s door for more
than a quarter century.
Starting with 1932 anyone could have made a million dollars on a
$10,000 investment in a different stock in each of 32 different years, of
which 1967 was the latest. To do it would have required neither the luck nor
the skill to sell out at the right time. Every one of the more than 360

100 to 1 in the Stock Market: A Distinguished Security Analyst Tells How to Make More of Your Investment Opportunities by Thomas William Phelps