Coroner's Advice

ANYONE CAN MAKE A MILLION by Morton Shulman. 276 pages. McGraw-Hill. $4.95.

Contrary to the misleading title of this book, not anyone can make a million. But almost everyone would like to try. For that reason, there is usually a market for get-rich-quick books. Shulman is neither a professional writer nor an investment counselor; he is the ex-coroner of Toronto, whose spare-time market speculations made him a millionaire. He wrote his book in two weeks, and in five months it has sold 108,000 copies. As a how-to-do-it handbook, it forwards the questionable thesis that what has worked for him can work for anybody.

Shulman condemns most conventional, long-term investments and tempts his readers to speculate. "Unfortunately," he says, "longterm is not too important to us because we humans are short-term." He repeats the obvious: the key to quick gain is to use leverage--to multiply, as much as twentyfold, the purchasing power of each investment dollar. He speculates in the commodities market because it offers 1) wide price swings and 2) minuscule margins--the buyer puts down as little as 5% and borrows the rest.

As for common stocks, Shulman recommends dabbling not in shares but in warrants, which are rights to buy stock and which sell for much less than the stock itself. His "ideal" investment is the convertible debenture, a bond that the owner can convert into stock and which, at its best, combines high yield with growth. Investors who are willing to borrow heavily can get considerable leverage with debentures, because bankers commonly lend from 75% to 90% of the purchase price.

Despite the heavy sales of the book, it has not had noticeable influence on activity in debentures, warrants or the commodities market--an indication that sophisticated investors know too well that leverage can accentuate downturns as well as upturns.

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