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Psychology of the stock market

Chapter 1: PREFACE
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About This Book

The text analyzes how collective and individual psychology shapes price movements on exchanges, tracing a recurring speculative cycle from quiet accumulation through accelerating advances to panicked selling. It explains cognitive errors such as inverted reasoning, mistaking current conditions for future prospects, and confusing personal experience with general trends. Chapters discuss the influence of herd notions of anonymous others, the mechanics and psychology of order scale and timing, and the dynamics of booms and panics. Practical guidance addresses how an individual trader's hopes, fears, and decision habits affect outcomes and how recognition of psychological biases can improve judgment.

PREFACE

This book is based upon the belief that the movements of prices on the exchanges are dependent to a very large degree on the mental attitude of the investing and trading public. It is the result of years of study and experience as fellow at Columbia University, news writer, statistician, on the editorial staff of The Magazine of Wall Street, etc.

The book is intended chiefly as a practical help to that considerable part of the community which is interested, directly or indirectly, in the markets; but it is hoped that it may also have some scientific value as a preliminary discussion in a new field, where opportunities for further research seem almost unlimited.

G. C. Selden.

New York, May 28, 1912.