《股票作手回忆录·第五章·赚大钱靠坐得住·老火鸡》第2节
Then there was one office where a chart of the daily movement of prices was kept. It showed at a glance just what each stock had done for months. By comparing individual curves with the general market curve and keeping in mind certain rules the customers could tell whether the stock on which they got an unscientific tip to buy was fairly entitled to a rise. They used the chart as a sort of complementary tipster. To-day there are scores of commission houses where you find trading charts. They come ready-made from the offices of statistical experts and include not only stocks but commodities. I should say that a chart helps those who can read it or rather who can assimilate what they read. The average chart reader, however, is apt to become obsessed with the notion that the dips and peaks and primary and secondary movements are all there is to stock speculation. If he pushes his confidence to its logical limit he is bound to go broke. There is an extremely able man, a former partner of a well-known Stock Exchange house, who is really a trained mathematician. He is a graduate of a famous technical school. He devised charts based upon a very careful and minute study of the behaviour of prices in many markets--stocks, bonds, grain, cotton, money, and so on. He went back years and years and traced the correlations and seasonal movements--oh, everything. He used his charts in his stock trading for years. What he really did was to take advantage of some highly intelligent averaging. They tell me he won regularly--until the World War knocked all precedents into a cocked hat. I heard that he and his large following lost millions before they desisted. But not even a world war can keep the stock market from being a bull market when conditions are bullish, or a bear market when conditions are bearish. And all a man needs to know to make money is to appraise conditions.
注释摘要
这段故事发生在二十世纪初，华尔街的证券经纪公司里开始出现一种新东西。当时，每家券商营业厅里最核心的是行情纸带机，股票价格每变动一下，就会在狭窄的纸带上打印出符号和数字。但纸带上的信息转瞬即逝，于是有些营业厅就安排人手，把每天每只股票的收盘价或者重要波动点，手工绘制成折线图，贴在墙上。这就是最早期的行情图表，在利文斯顿的叙述里，它出现的时候还没有什么高深的理…