Foreword
FG deference to requests for a more permanent form of the
‘Studies in Securities,”” which are issued monthly by this firm,
we have brought up to date, for the most part keeping the original
text, a selected group of fifty of the individual ‘‘Studies’’ which
have appeared in the past five years and present them herewith.
In the monthly issues, the companies to be treated are chosen with
a view to both investment character and speculative promise, and
from the many thus discussed the fifty herein reprinted are again
selected as those which perhaps best present a cross-section of the
commercial activity of this country.
With few exceptions, they are corporations which combine all of
the following qualifications: proven management, long record of
substantial earning power and dividend payment, large size and
dominance in their respective fields, and sound financial structure.
Obviously no attempt has been made to have the list all-inclusive
even so far as these qualifications apply.
Securities even as humans have character to those who know them.
In such brief reviews of large companies naturally only the out-
standing points in their past histories and current positions can
be touched on, and thus we have chosen to present only what appear
to us as the accomplishments in the past and evidences in the
present which enable one to judge the character of their securities.
The companies covered in these pages afford all forms of corporate
investment and speculative securities: long-term and short-term
issues, underlying closed mortgage obligations, open and junior
mortgages, convertible bonds, guaranteed and preferred stocks,
and common stock equities. Our aim herein is merely to present
such facts as provide basis for judgment upon the corporate
character. Sources are readily available as to details of indi-
vidual securities.
Although we form at times what appear to us as reasoned con-
vietions based on economic conditions regarding price trends (for
example, as to the inevitable recovery of old-line securities from
war influences, expressed in numerous circulars during the past
seven years), we have no particular pride of opinion as to general
stock market price fluetuations. Corporate character and trend of
earning power are two essentials in forecasting market prices,
knowledge of which it is humanly possible to acquire; accordingly,
our emphasis thereon. Other factors of a general character (fre-
quently conflicting and usually involved) are important and inter-
