The Future Method of Investing Money: Economic Facts for Corporations and Investors

by Roger W. Babson

This is said to be the frankest and briefest explanation of the “inside” of the investment business ever published. An important chapter is devoted to showing when to buy. Mr. Babson believes that to know this is more important than to know what to buy. Moreover, if any man is to win in this world, as a manufacturer, merchant or investor, he must be willing to "buck" the crowd and do what the other ninety-nine fellows are not doing. It is in this spirit that Babson urges manufacturers to contract during times of abnormal prosperity and to extend their plants during periods of depression; while investors are urged to liquidate during booms when everyone is advising purchases, and muster courage to buy securities during pessimistic days when almost everyone is bearish. Babson believes that those who follow his suggestions will be richly repaid for their efforts.

Paperback

Published January 1, 2001

About the author

Roger Ward Babson (July 6, 1875 – March 5, 1967), remembered today largely for founding Babson College in Massachusetts, was an entrepreneur and business theorist in the first half of the 20th century. He also founded Webber College, now Webber International University, in Babson Park, Florida, and the defunct Utopia College, in Eureka, Kansas.

He was born to Nathaniel Babson and his wife Ellen Stearns as part of the tenth generation of Babsons to live in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Roger attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology and worked for investment firms before founding, in 1904, Babson's Statistical Organization, which analyzed stocks and business reports. It continues today as Babson-United, Inc..

On March 29, 1900, Babson married his first wife, Grace Margaret Knight, who died in 1956. In 1957 he remarried to Nona M. Dougherty, who died in 1963. Babson died in 1967.