With all the hullabaloo about speculation, an amateur investor may naturally assume that Wall Street is strictly for gamblers. This is a great pity, because probably a long-term investor can get better results in the stock market than elsewhere, provided he follows a few fairly simple rules. Also, it would help in the public understanding of how free enterprise, and especially big business, is owned, if more of our non-gambling citizens participated in owning corporate stocks.
Lets compare stockholders with motor-vehicle drivers. Every year automobiles, trucks, and their drivers cause a fantastic number of deaths and personal injuries, not to mention property damage. The great majority of drivers are careful at least nearly all of the time! Most accidents are caused by a comparatively small number of careless and reckless drivers. A cautious citizen, knowing that he or his family may be the victims of the next accident, could conceivably protect himself by refusing to use motor highways. But the trouble is that motor vehicles save us so much time and energy, and give us so much pleasure when used sanely, that we know their good qualities far outweigh the bad. So we continue to drive, and to hope that the wild drivers will behave, while in our vicinity! In Wall Street, the speculators, in spite of the commotion they raise, are only part of the community, the same as the reckless drivers on the highways. And in contrast to the highway problem, a cautious amateur can invest in such a manner that he runs low risk of having his finances wrecked by the gambler mindset.