Investing at its Best and
will find the Registry’s plan of investment most unin
teresting, for it affords no such chances, and aims solely
at maintaining capital intact and ensuring a regular
income. The pleasurable excitement caused by watch
ing price quotations of a rising tendency cannot be
enjoyed when this plan is applied. All those stocks
which lend themselves to speculation are excluded, the
plan being confined entirely to that class of investments
which is least likely to attract the attention of specula
tive operators.
It is true that the plan aims, among other objects, at
a gradual increase of capital, but the process for attain
ing this end is slow and deliberate, as it is based upon
real improvement in value, and not on market
manipulation.
Sound Investment.—Stability of capital value and
regularity of income are the essentials of sound invest
ment. To obtain these with mathematical certainty is
impossible. Every investment, whatever its nature,
and however safe it may appear to a prospective pur
chaser, has an element of inherent risk.
The best system of investment can only reduce the
risks and minimise their bad effects by a scientific method
of averaging, but it cannot remove them from any single
stock. The best constructed list of investments is bound
to show some variations in total realisable value from
year to year, but such variations should be small in
comparison with the amount of capital invested.
During recent years lists of investments consisting
solely of British Trustee stocks have depreciated over