《股票作手回忆录·第六章·旧金山地震·做空联合太平洋》第1节
In the spring of 1906 I was in Atlantic City for a short vacation. I was out of stocks and was thinking only of having a change of air and a nice rest. By the way, I had gone back to my first brokers, Harding Brothers, and my account had got to be pretty active. I could swing three or four thousand shares. That wasn’t much more than I had done in the old Cosmopolitan shop when I was barely twenty years of age. But there was some difference between my one-point margin in the bucket shop and the margin required by brokers who actually bought or sold stocks for my account on the New York Stock Exchange. You may remember the story I told you about that time when I was short thirty-five hundred Sugar in the Cosmopolitan and I had a hunch something was wrong and I’d better close the trade? Well, I have often had that curious feeling. As a rule, I yield to it. But at times I have pooh-poohed the idea and have told myself that it was simply asinine to follow any of these sudden blind impulses to reverse my position. I have ascribed my hunch to a state of nerves resulting from too many cigars or insufficient sleep or a torpid liver or something of that kind. When I have argued myself into disregarding my impulse and have stood pat I have always had cause to regret it. A dozen instances occur to me when I did not sell as per hunch, and the next day I’d go downtown and the market would be strong, or perhaps even advance, and I’d tell myself how silly it would have been to obey the blind impulse to sell. But on the following day there would be a pretty bad drop. Something had broken loose somewhere and I’d have made money by not being so wise and logical. The reason plainly was not physiological but psychological.
注释摘要
1906年的春天，利文斯顿来到大西洋城度假。这个时间节点值得注意：距离书中后面将发生的旧金山大地震做空联合太平洋的事件，只剩下短短几天。此时的美国正处于一轮牛市之中，而大西洋城作为东海岸著名的海滨度假胜地，木板道上散步、呼吸海风、看海鸥砸蛤蜊，是当时有钱有闲阶层典型的休闲方式。主角说他想换换空气、好好休息，手上没有任何持仓，这个状态与他几天后狂卖五千股联合…