Wall Street Ventures and Adventures Through 40 Years

Wyckoff makes about a dozen good points in the second half of the book.

On this book “Wall Street Ventures” we find:

“For many years there have been methods of transmitting secret advices by means of code letters and words printed in certain sections of daily newspapers. Formerly these advices were brief and simple, though quite effectively used among those who were ‘wise.’ They have since been greatly elaborated. If you have some knowledge of the subject, studying these signals, advices or forecasts, you can see that they emanate from the headquarters of important interests, and that they forecast the trend of the market in general, and certain stocks.

“People may think this improbable; entirely too uncanny in this day of modern business procedure. But I know exactly what I am writing about!

“However, I cannot advise anyone to search for this secret ‘Open Sesame.’ There never was a secret code which could not be changed on short notice.”

Wyckoff penned this book containing the above drivel in 1930, several years after he suffered an almost fatal aneurysm in the brain. He never completely regained his health from the time of his stroke until the time of his death in the early 1930s. He had already lost control of his flagship company, “The Magazine of Wall Street,” after a bitter divorce. His career as the leading promoter of stock market advice, stock tips, books, and systems was effectively finished.

The earlier Wyckoff was an excellent, engaging writer who wrote many well-crafted books on trading, the best of which was “Studies in Tape Reading,” last revised in 1924. Wyckoff’s highly popular magazine articles effectively established the career of W. D. Gann, and made Jesse Livermore somewhat of a household name. His books were written largely in the manner of the stock market astrologer, Sepharial, in that the reader always needed to purchase one other book or service to clarify the author’s message (this was not true of “Studies, etc.”). “Wall Street Ventures, etc.” is no different. It is a veiled advertisement for the author’s (then) soon-to-be-released correspondence course on trading. The footnote on page 303 suggests the true purpose of this book: “Some of my friends have suggested that I undertake to teach say one hundred people the fine points of what experience has taught me so that they may be able to operate successfully in the stock market.” This statement, of course, implies that what he had written prior to the upcoming course had NOT prepared readers for operating successfully in the stock market!

I have a 1934 edition of Wyckoff’s course and, true to form, one had to subscribe to his market letter to find the volume-volatility characteristics on his “wave chart” that was his alleged, indispensable key to short-term trading! Although the author promised in the promotional literature that this course would develop stand-alone traders, and that full details would be given for constructing the wave chart, at the end of the course he blatantly recommended signing-up for his market letter so that the course graduate could keep current with the vital factors not disclosed in the course!

(It should be noted that in 1929, “The Magazine of Wall Street,” then operated by Wyckoff’s ex-wife, was totally blind-sided by the crash and its prelude. My copies of this magazine indicate only the rosiest of expectations for the economy and markets at the dawning of the 1930s. While I have no copies of the magazine’s investor-service letters, I feel that the magazine performed a significant disservice to its subscribers in recommending that they remain fully-invested at the market’s top [the level of which was not revisited for a quarter of a century]!)

“Ventures, etc.” is the life story of a person who happened to be associated with Wall Street. If one reads this book with the expectation of gaining investment or trading pointers, he or she will be disappointed. However, Wyckoff had lost little of his entertaining, easy to read, writing style. If you are interested in gaining an understanding of the events that shaped the life of an early, 20th century writer and stock market service promoter, then you will probably like this book.

While I can only mildly recommend “Wall Street Ventures, etc.” to readers who really like Wyckoff, I strongly recommend the author’s “Studies in Tape Reading” for the student of historical stock market writings. It is full of good, timeless advice and interesting vignettes of a bygone financial era. For early, first-hand accounts of Wall Street stories, I feel that the reader will find the following works to be of more than passing interest:

Adams, Charles Francis Jr., and Adams, Henry. (1960). “Chapters of Erie.” Ithaca, NY: Great Seal Books (Cornell Univ. Press.)

Clews, Henry. (1888). “Twenty-eight years in Wall Street.” New York: Irving Publishing Co.

Fowler, William Worthington. (1880). “Twenty years of inside life in Wall Street, or revalations of the personal experience of a speculator.” New York: Orange Judd Co.

Noyes, Alexander Dana. (1938). “The market place: reminiscences of a financial editor.” Boston: Little, Brown and Co.

Stedman, Edmund Clarence. (1905). “The New York stock exchange.” New York: The Stock Exchange Historical Co.