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The Joe Kennedy Story

How An Eight Year Boy Saved the Kennedy Fortune: Bullish Consensus


Bullish Consensus is the measure of how many market advisors are recommending

a long (or buy) position in a given market. This is also known as “Contrary

Opinion” and “Bullish Sentiment.”


On a day-by-day basis, bullish consensus should not be a major influence on your

estimate of a given market situation, but in years when a prolonged trend has

attracted more and more traders, bullish consensus is a major tool to help one

decide when the top (or bottom) is at hand.


Open interest is the number of contracts on the books (at a futures exchange in this

case) that must be off-set with an equal, but opposite, transaction at some future

date.


Joe Kennedy, the father of the 35th president of the United States, as a young man,

was a highly motivated to amass a fortune. He was educated about business

management and married the daughter of Boston’s mayor, which facilitated his

business growth. Prohibition of alcohol became law in 1919 and presented another

opportunity for Kennedy to expand his successful business enterprises by

providing whiskey to those willing to pay high prices for illegal spirits. Kennedy

became a savvy investor in stocks and commodities. He made another fortune in

the booming stock market of the 1920’s.


In the 1920’s, stocks could be bought on a slim margin, meaning a few dollars of

cash could be leveraged to buy $100 worth of stock. People who had never heard

of stocks were persuaded by stock brokers to use their life savings to buy stocks on

margin. The stock market exploded in the late 1920’s, and Joe Kennedy became

one of the richest men in America by 1929.


In the midsummer of 1929, some 300 million shares of stock were “owned” by

being carried on a slim amount of “margin money.”


There was a day in the third week of September, 1929, when Kennedy, as usual,

was headed to his office building in downtown Boston with the morning

newspaper in-hand. He walked into the elevator to go to his top floor office with a

splendid view of the Boston skyline.


As always, the 8-year-old elevator operator boy said, “Good morning, Mr.

Kennedy.” Kennedy was always polite to the boy and often chit-chatted with him.


This particular morning, Kennedy was reading the newspaper headline about how

the stock market had made new highs with a spectacular move the previous day.


The elevator boy asked Kennedy, “Mr. Kennedy, have you heard about the stock

market? It is making a lot of people a lot of money.”


Kennedy said, “Really? Tell me about it.” Kennedy was intrigued that an eight-

year-old boy knew about the stock market.


“Well, Sir, last Friday my grandma told me she had invested $20 in the stock

market, and a week later that $20 was worth more than $500! Can you believe that,

Mr. Kennedy? $500! Grandma said that is more money than she earns in six

months! I had saved $5, and Grandma invested it for me on Monday. I have

already made more than $100! Mr. Kennedy, I am sure you could really make a lot

of money in the stock market!”


Kennedy told the boy he greatly appreciated the investment advice and gave the

boy triple his normal tip.


As Kennedy walked by his secretary’s desk, he told her to contact all his stock

brokers and tell them to be in his office within the hour.


An hour later, all sixteen of Kennedy’s stock brokers were in his office. Kennedy

told them to not to bother finding a chair as this was going to be a very short

meeting. Then he told to them sell every stock he owned.


All of them were quick to argue with him. Kennedy quickly raised his hand and

demanded silence.


He said, “Any of you who do not sell my stocks by noon today, I will fire you and

find a broker who will do what I tell them to do. Now get out of here and get to

work!”


On October 18, the market went into a free-fall. The wild rush to buy stocks gave

way to an equally wild rush to sell. The first day of real panic, October 24, is

known as Black Thursday. On that day, a record 12.9 mill