《股票作手回忆录·第十四章·游戏永不变·人性永不变》第21节
At 2:20 that afternoon I did not own a single bale, but at 2:25 my belief that peace was impending made me buy fifteen thousand bales as a starter. I proposed to follow my old system of trading--that is, of buying my full line--which I have already described to you. That very afternoon, after the market closed, we got the Unrestricted Warfare note. There wasn’t anything to do except to wait for the market to open the next day. I recall that at Gridley’s that night one of the greatest captains of industry in the country was offering to sell any amount of United States Steel at five points below the closing price that afternoon. There were several Pittsburgh millionaires within hearing. Nobody took the big man’s offer. They knew there was bound to be a whopping big break at the opening. Sure enough, the next morning the stock and commodity markets were in an uproar, as you can imagine. Some stocks opened eight points below the previous night’s close. To me that meant a heaven-sent opportunity to cover all my shorts profitably. As I said before, in a bear market it is always wise to cover if complete demoralisation suddenly develops. That is the only way, if you swing a good-sized line, of turning a big paper profit into real money both quickly and without regrettable reductions. For instance, I was short fifty thousand shares of United States Steel alone. Of course I was short of other stocks, and when I saw I had the market to cover in, I did. My profits amounted to about one and a half million dollars. It was not a chance to disregard.
注释摘要
这一段讲的是利弗莫尔在1917年初一次戏剧性的双线作战。要理解这一幕，先要还原两个关键的历史背景。第一个是“无限制潜艇战照会”（Unrestricted Warfare note）——这是1917年1月底德国政府向美国发出的外交照会，宣布德国潜艇将不加警告地攻击所有驶往英国和欧洲盟国的船只，包括中立国商船。这个消息一夜之间摧毁了市场对和平的幻想。华尔街此前…