《股票作手回忆录·第二十四章·收尾反思》第1节
The public always wants to be told. That is what makes tip-giving and tip-taking universal practices. It is proper that brokers should give their customers trading advice through the medium of their market letters as well as by word of mouth. But brokers should not dwell too strongly on actual conditions because the course of the market is always from six to nine months ahead of actual conditions. Today’s earnings do not justify brokers in advising their customers to buy stocks unless there is some assurance that six or nine months from today the business outlook will warrant the belief that the same rate of earnings will be maintained. If on looking that far ahead you can see, reasonably clearly, that conditions are developing which will change the present actual power, the argument about stocks being cheap today will disappear. The trader must look far ahead, but the broker is concerned with getting commissions now; hence the inescapable fallacy of the average market letter. Brokers make their living out of commissions from the public and yet they will try to induce the public through their market letters or by word of mouth to buy the same stocks in which they have received selling orders from insiders or manipulators.
注释摘要
这段直白的开篇揭露了投机世界里一个恒久不变的真相：大众骨子里渴望被指引。他们不愿，或者说不敢，在市场的迷雾中独自做出判断，于是把希望寄托在别人嘴里说出的话上。这就是小道消息和透露消息这种行为永远有市场的心理根源。它满足的不是人们对财富的渴望，而是人们对确定性的幻觉。利文斯顿在这里不是教人怎么听消息，而是冷酷地解剖为什么你那么想听消息——因为独立思考太累，承…