CP 03011/en
Lionel Hauser to Marcel Proust 26 October 1915
(Click on the link above to see this letter and its notes in the Corr-Proust digital edition, including all relevant hyperlinks.)
Paris, 26 October 1915
My dear Marcel,
I have received your letter[1] and I have paid close attention to its contents.
There is no need to tell you that we are deeply immersed in studying your accounts and I hope, in two or three days’ time, to send you a report which will allow you to review your situation as exactly as possible.
As regards the tip you have had on the subject of Steel[2], I will confine myself to telling you that its stock, which is known as advantageous by every speculator, is as it were the "Rio" of the New York market, only with this difference, that Rio Tinto, being a copper mine, we know pretty well what it contains; what one extracts from it in less than a year remains with the mine, and one is certain of recovering it, whereas Steel is a collection of metallurgical factories that follow the ups and downs of American industry
Those stocks that have already been quoted at 7% have jumped to almost 100, only to fall back to below 60. Ever since the Americans have been manufacturing for the Allies[3] they have again risen reasonably well and today are worth above 80.
Currently they are not distributing dividends.
I don’t have any advice to give you, but if you decide to acquire these shares you risk losing the little you have left.
In this regard allow me to disabuse you of a false impression of which you are unfortunately victim. You imagine, along with many others, that the gains one realizes on the stock market are dependent upon the stocks that one buys. Well, paradoxical as it might seem, I can assure you that that depends in the first place on the person who is managing them. I have known individuals who have enriched themselves on the stock market by managing tenth rate shares and others who have been ruined with premium rate shares. It is very much a question of the individual. There are people who are born to do this job, and others who are born to get their fingers burned by it. I don’t think I am exaggerating when I say that you belong to the latter, but if you are not convinced, you are at liberty to continue the exercise, I ask only to be convinced to the contrary.
Bien sincèrement à toi.