BULL PSYCHOLOGY

This country's mania for stock speculation seems to have subsided for the time being at least. The stuation at present with money extremely cheap and security prices staying at about the same level would seem to indicate that the speculative element is going to wait for actual improvement in business conditions before giving any substantial support to the market.

It does not, however, signify that recent reverses in stock prices have cured the country of the desire to speculate. To the average American who has lived through the last four or five years of bull markets, speculation means easy money, and the idea has become so firmly instilled in the popular mind that it will take more than one disastrous crash to wipe it out.

Meanwhile business conditions fall to improve materially and large operators, wary of relying too heavily on expectations after their experiences of this spring, await the long-heralded upswing. That it is bound to come is a foregone conclusion; the time element is the important one now. And when it does come and prices start up again, the public will jump in just as it did last time, though it is to be hoped that the movement can be kept within the bounds of reason when the next bull market really gets under way. The greatest danger lies in the lack of judgment on the part of the average speculator and investor. Mob psychology invariably rules the day, and the elemental principle that stocks are a much more attractive buy when low than when high has no effect in curbing the unbounded optimism of the American people, once the ball starts rolling.