Page:Hints About Investments (1926).pdf/255

 a fool's paradise. I am sure very few of you realize to what a large extent certain investment trust companies purchase one another's stocks. The purchases are usually made because of knowledge that the 'break-up' value is such-and-such a figure, whereas the market price is only such-and-such. However, if all the investment companies will continue to buy one another's junior stocks, naturally the break-up values of all will go up and up, until one fine day, when the buying movement is replaced by a selling movement, they will go down and down. . ..

"This financially incestuous buying of one another's junior stocks has in my opinion arrived at such a point that careful investors ought now to discriminate between stocks of those companies which make a practice of it and those which do not. . ..

"I think many will agree with me that in view of the large amount of capital invested in investment trust company stocks the market in them is extraordinarily restricted, which is a great pity from many points of view. The prevailing tendency to which I have referred intensifies the narrowness of the market. . ..

"As we all know, investment trust companies—have for some time past been having a very good time. However, most of the older