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For these reasons, no investment should be 
purchased without due consideration of the 
company’s balance-sheets and position. 
A close valuation of a company’s affairs is 
much less complicated than many imagine, and 
whenever any difficulty is experienced in this 
respect it can always be easily cleared up by 
consulting a competent financial adviser. 
We have now established the fact that 
external causes give the keynote to the price- 
movements of almost all solidly founded and 
well established investments, and that internal 
causes only modify this main controlling 
force in exceptional cases. 
Another glance at the charts of price- 
movements, which we publish earlier in this 
chapter, will indicate that the relative strengths 
of external and internal causes in the case 
of sound investments may be respectively 
expressed by the ratio of 4 to 1. This 
ratio only applies to investments where in 
trinsic safety is capable of clear demonstration 
at the time of purchase, as it is, of course, 
patent that new and untried ventures have 
first of all to find their right price level. 
During the period when a new concern 
is moving erratically in search of its proper 
orbit of fluctuation, it is obvious that internal 
influences, such as altering capital safety,