Investment is a wide and stormy sea
Where prices toss and bounce like drifting planks;
The managers are seamen (paid a fee)
On leaky boats with empty fuel tanks.
The storm drives shares and bonds like things possessed
While mariner investors try to snatch
Their profits when they ride up on the crest:
the weaker nets come back without a catch,
the brave and sturdy steer away from rocks
through falling dollars, floating rates and scrips
across the shoals of rights and pools of stocks
and you can cross the seas in your stout ships:
but ponder well before you scull across
that one man’s profit is another’s loss.