G. M. Loeb - The Battle for Investment Survival

THE BATTLE FOR INVESTMENT SURVIVAL

by Gerald M. Loeb

Fraser Publishing Company Burlington, Vermont

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations to be used in critical articles or reviews.

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1935, 1936, 1937, 1943, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1965 BYG.M. LOEB

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY SIMON AND SCHUSTER, INC. 630 FIFTH AVENUE, NEWYORK 20, N.Y.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 57-12506 MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NINETEENTH PRINTING

1988 edition published by FYaser Publishing Company, a division of FYaser Management Associates, Inc. Box 494, Burlington, Vermont 05402 with permission of Simon & Schuster 2nd Printing, 1990 3rd Printing, 1992 4th Printing, 1993 5th Printing, 1995

Acknowledgments

Some of the articles contained in the following chapters originally appeared in Barron's, The Commercial and Financial Chronicle, Investor Magazine, Trust and Estates, American magazine, and in the NANA syndicated column, Wall Street Today. A Layman Looks at Building first appeared in the Architectural Fbrum.

The chapter I Dont Sell People Buy from Me, is from Hoiv I Made the Sale That Did the Most for Me, compiled and edited by J.M. Hickerson, Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1951.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 88-081705 ISBN: 0-87034-084-0

Cover design by S.L. White

Printed in the United States by Braun-Brumfield, Inc.

• 58. Dont Look for Management at Bargain Rates 213

  	Miracle Plan Investing
  	The Step System
  	Double Dividends
  	A Layman Looks at Building
  	Investment Managers Dilemma
  	I Dont SellPeople Buy from Me
  	Money from Market Letters
  	The Ideal Client
  	Perpetual Profits
  	What Makes a Stock Good?
  	A Dollar Today
  	The Leopard Never Changes Its Spots
  	Words for the Beginner
  	More on Tape Reading
  	Whats the Value of Watching Tape?
  	Importance of Equity Investments
  	Wallflower Stocks
  	More Double Dividends
  	Never Accept Without Checking
  	How to Get the Most Out of Your Investments

Remember the old saw: Those who can, do. Those who cant, teach or write success stories.

Without for a moment implying that all teachers and authors lack the ability to do the things they teach and write about, the publishers undertook to prove the old adage false by persuading a successful speculator to revise his book in which he tells how he does it.

The author is a seasoned stock broker and the material in this book is distilled from over 40 years of experience in Wall Street, plus knowledge gained from study of the ups-and-downs of thousands of brokerage accounts. But, he is not an ivorytower theorist. He has tested his accumulated knowledge in the hot forge of the market place with millions of dollars of cold cash. His findings are now available to the readers of this book.

Until the stock market debacle of 1929, security-holders were inclined to accord their invested capitalthe life-blood of their economic existenceless attention than they gave to their automobile or teeth. Once a good investment, always a good investment seemed to be their attitude. But Mr. Loeb sets forth the inescapable investment doctrine that eternal vigilance is the price of success and bluntly states that an ideal investment is totally non-existent.

In substance, this book is hard-boiled, realistic, at times unorthodox. It promises no short cuts to wealth; neither does it take the sour grapes attitude that Wall Street is a snare and delusion. Rather it is a succinct, straight-forward, uncompromising revelation of stock market technique and philosophy by one who has been successful enough to make his views worth recording.

The publication of this up-to-date and enlarged edition of The Battle for Investment Survival is due to two factorsthe steady demand for the first hardcover edition, which has sold over 200,000 copies, and the highly complimentary comments made by various readers of that edition. The contents of the hardcover book, which was last updated in 1957, are included here, practically without change. Here and there, as in the case of the 1964 tax revision, text changes have been made. Basically, the philosophy of the book has withstood the test of time. Some of the chapters were written in 1935 and checked in 1943 and 1957 and again now in 1965; they are still as valid as when they were written.