been written in vain if they have not shown how difficult it is for the ordinary investor to weigh the real merits of any security from a public debt down to a share in a mine that is some day going to flood the world with platinum. We have seen how many guesses we have to make in considering the taxable capacity of a country and the policy that its rulers are likely to follow in husbanding its resources; and that the earning power of a company is to a great extent dependent on the opinion of the directors concerning the figures at which the assets should be stated in the balance-sheet; and a great accounting authority has been quoted who said that the amount taken credit for in respect of one asset alone—stock-in-trade—may double or treble the apparent profit if it be put too high.[1] With his feet in these quicksands and his head in this fog, through the rifts in which he can only get glimpses of what may be fact and may be mirage, the ordinary investor may well hesitate about any attempt at industrial investment, even when his hand be held by a most cautious and intelligent stockbroker.
To the author of Common Stocks as Long Term Investments, the dangers surrounding the choice by any individual investor were so evident that he ends his book by advising him
- ↑ Pixley, p. 444.
