34 Investing at its Best and 
material facts which rendered the investment concerned 
undesirable. Had a thorough investigation into the 
security always been possible prior to its purchase, any 
such drawbacks would have been discovered, and 
naturally no purchase would have been made. 
There must always be a certain proportion of com 
parative failures among any large selection of securities. 
This proportion can be minimised by a very careful 
investigation before every purchase, but not entirely 
eliminated. The combined holdings of the Registry’s 
clientele embraces several thousands of individual 
securities, but only about one hundred of these show 
a predominant holding by the Registry’s clients. 
During the last seven years only a few instances 
occurred in which the Registry recommended a security 
which subsequently failed to meet its engagements. In 
two such cases, the Registry’s clients held a sufficient 
amount to make their influence felt, and, through 
prompt action on the Registry’s part, their interests 
were fully protected; in the other instances such protec 
tion was impossible, and the Registry’s customers were 
in no better position than other investors. 
The various difficulties above described are prac 
tically overcome in the case of the Registry’s own 
issues, and so soon as a sufficiently large number of its 
customers had adopted the principle of Geographical 
Distribution, it became possible for the Registry to 
make its own issues, which its clientele had then become 
strong enough to absorb entirely. 
Before making an issue the Registry institutes a