Huikea kyllä tuo Seldenin The Psychology of the Stock Market vuodelta 1912. Ihmisen tunne-elämä on sama. Mikään ei ikinä olennaisesti muutu.
The actual bottom prices of the panic are more likely to result from necessity than from fear. Those investors who could be frightened out of their holdings are likely to give up before the bottom is reached. The lowest prices are usually made by sales for those whose immediate resources are exhausted. Most of them are taken by surprise and could raise the money necessary to carry their stocks if they had a little time; but in the stock market, “time is the essence of the contract,” and is the very thing that they cannot have.
The ensuing recovery takes place without any apparent reason. Traders say, “The panic is over, but stocks cannot go up much under such bearish conditions as now exist.” Yet stocks can and do go up, because they are merely regaining the natural level from which they were depressed by “bankrupt sales,” as we would say in discussing dry goods.
Perhaps the word “fear” has been overworked in the discussion of stock market psychology. It is only the very few who actually sell their stocks under the direct influence of the emotion of fear. But a feeling of caution strong enough to induce sales, or even a fixed belief that prices must decline, constitutes in itself a sort of modification of fear, and has the same result so far as prices are concerned.
The effect of this fear or caution in a panic is not limited to the selling of stocks, but is even more important in preventing purchases. It takes far less uneasiness to cause the intending investor to delay purchases than to precipitate actual sales by holders. For this reason, a small quantity of stock pressed for sale in a panicky market may cause a decline out of all proportion to its importance. The offerings may be small, but nobody wants them.
It is this factor which accounts for the rapid recoveries which frequently follow panics. Waiting investors are afraid to step in front of a demoralized market, but once the turn appears, they fall over each other to buy.
(Kiehtovasti tuo kuvaa sanasta sanaan mitä Helsingin pörssissä tapahtui vuonna 1992.
Toki markan kelluttaminen loi edellytyksiä erityisen jyrkälle nousun kulmakertoimelle mutta kesän 1992 pakkorealisointien loppuminen olisi joka tapauksessa riittänyt siihen että pohja saavutetaan ja edessä nousu.)