A Freshly Cooled Financial Volcano

Some more words of wisdom from the dusty annals of Wall Street courtesy of Google books. Those of you who feel a little beat up by the investing results of last year, read the words of William Worthington Fowler, author of "Ten Years in Wall Street; Or, Revelations of Inside Life and Experience on 'change."

"Men come into Wall Street with fortune, credit, reputation, hope, strength unbruised, confidence in their fellow-men unworn, they leave it without money, credit, or reputation; with shattered nerves, a blunted sensibility, a conscience seared, a faith in mankind destroyed, and hopes crushed by a Giant Despair. They lose everywhere, buying stocks, selling stocks; by failures of their brokers, by frauds of their contractors, by panics, by corners, by tricks and stratagems of the market. They use their reason, their reason fails them and they lose. Then they abandon reason, and trusting to luck, plunge blindly into the vortex which swallows them up speedily and beyond rescue. If they emerge at last, it is to wander on with little relish or power for active, honest toil, and haunted still by the phantoms of their old life."

And then here's the part that fit in right with today's market:

"The field of speculation was never more dangerous than now. The market is full of stocks watered to five times the amount represented eight years since. Men in Wall Street are treading upon the hardly cooled lava crust which covers a financial volcano; an eruption may whelm them any day in one common ruin."

This article was written by Stock Market Prognosticator. If you enjoyed this article, please vote for it by clicking the Buzz Up! button below.