I was very lucky. I was rampantly bullish in a wild bull market. Things were certainly coming my way so that there wasn't anything to do but to make money. It made me remember a saying of the late H.H. Rogers, of the Standard and Oil Company, to the effect that there were times when a man could no more help making money than he could help getting wet if he went out in a rainstorm without an umbrella. It was the most clearly defined bull market we ever had. . . .

And not only was the war-bride boom more naturally developed than all others but it proved unprecedently profitable for the general public. That is, the stockmarket winnings during 1915 were more widely distributed than in any other boom in the history of Wall Street. That the public did not turn all their paper profits into good hard cash or that they did not long keep what profits they actually took was merely history repeating itself. Nowhere does history indulge in repetitions so often or so uniformly as in Wall Street. When you read contemporary accounts of booms or panics the one thing that strikes you the most forcibly is how little either stock speculation or stock speculators to'day (sic) differ from yesterday. The game does not change and neither does human nature.

I went along with the rise in 1916. I was as bullish as the next man, but of course I kept my eyes open. I knew that there must be an end, and I was on the watch for warning signals. I wasn't particularly interested in guessing from which quarter the tip would come and so I didn't just stare at one spot. I was not, and never felt that I was, wedding indissolubly to one or the other side of the market. That a bull market has added to my bank account or a bear market has been particularly generous I do not consider sufficent reason for sticking to the bull or the bear side after I receive the get'out warning. A man does not swear eternal allegiance to either the bull or the bear side. His concern lies with being right.

And there is another thing to remember, and that is that a market does not culminate in one grand blaze of glory. Neither does it end with a sudden reversal of form. A market can and does often cease to be a bull market long before prices generally begin to break. My long expected warning came to me when I noticed that, one after another, those stocks which had been the leaders of the market reacted several points from the top and''for the first time in many months''did not come back. Their race was evidently run, and that clearly necessitated a change in my trading tactics....

At the same time, the rest of the market kept advancing under new standard bearers....The leaders that had ceased to lead I sold [short]...and then I went long of the new leaders. By this time I was more bearish than bullish, because obviously the next big money was to be made on the down side. While I felt certain that the bear market had really begun before the bull market had really ended, I knew the time for being rampant bear was not yet....

I kept on both buying and selling until after about a month's trading I had a short line of about sixty thousand shares...It was not a very heavy line; but don't forget that neither was the market definitely bearish. Then one day the entire market became quite weak and prices of all stocks began to fall. When I had a profit of at least four points in each and every one of the twelve stocks I was short of, I knew I was right...so I promptly doubled up.

I had my position. I was short of stocks in a market that was now plainly a bear market...After I doubled up, I didn't make another trade for a long time. About seven weeks after I put out my full line, we had the famous "leak," and stocks broke badly...

...my experience of thirty years as a trader is that such accidents [the story that created the market break] are usually along the line of least resistance on which I base my position in the market. Another thing to bear in mind is this: Never try to sell [short] at the top. It isn't wise. Sell after a reaction if there is no rally.

I cleared about three million dollars in 1916 by being bullish as long as the bull market lasted and then by being bearish when the bear market started. As I said before, a man does not have to marry one side of the market till death due them part.