Uncommon Sense: The Enigmatic Mister Johnson
“Every one of us has a tuning fork inside of himself that vibrates with the crowd,” said Fidelity president Edward C. Johnson II.
In The Money Game, author George Goodman — writing under the pseudonym Adam Smith — introduces readers to a colorful cast of Wall Street characters, from towering titans of finance to down-on-their-luck dreamers who never quite struck it rich.
Among them, one figure stood out as particularly compelling: Edward C. Johnson II, the president of Fidelity, whom Goodman reverently referred to as “Mister Johnson”.
He devoted an entire chapter to the enigmatic Mister Johnson, who held quasi-mythic status among Wall Streeters as a man uniquely attuned to the deeper mysteries and rhythms of the stock market.
“What hooks me about Mister Johnson,” wrote Goodman, “is that he does not talk about the stock market in terms of GNP and tax cuts and automobile production.”
In an industry dominated by those with dollar signs in their eyes and little curiosity beyond adding another zero onto their net worth, Mister Johnson was different. He pursued money as part of a broader quest for truth, delving deeply into the emotional and psychological currents that drive people and markets.
Plus, noted Goodman, “Mister Johnson has a great gift of phrase,” and his oft-lyrical words carry the weight of a winner who saw investing as more art than science.
As such, I have collected some of my favorite Mister Johnson-isms — from The Money Game and elsewhere — for further study and reflection.
✨ “The market is like a beautiful woman — endlessly fascinating, endlessly complex, always changing, always mystifying. I have been absorbed and immersed since 1924 and I know this is no science. It is an art. Now we have computers and all sorts of statistics, but the market is still the same and understanding the market is still no easier. It is personal intuition, sensing patterns of behavior. There is always something unknown, undiscerned.”
Here is Mister Johnson’s “great gift of phrase” on full display from the start.