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Who really said it

I believe the market is going to fluctuate

Not Rockefeller — an anecdote that changed hands Unknown Unattributed anecdote · in print by October 1922
Disputed Free to reuse

Nobody is documented as having said this. Quote Investigator ↗ traces the story to the Wall Street Journal in October 1922, where the reply is the shorter ‘I think they will fluctuate’ and the teller is Henry Poor — who had died in 1905, years before the article appeared. The sentence people quote today, with ‘the market’ in it, does not turn up until 1926, and there the speaker is J. P. Morgan.

Last verified 4 Aug 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“I believe the market is going to fluctuate” Not Rockefeller — an anecdote that changed hands. Earliest telling: Wall Street Journal, October 1922, in different words; this exact wording first appears in 1926, credited to J. P. Morgan. Verbatim: “Young man, I believe the market is going to fluctuate.”

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to John D. Rockefeller. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

Free to use, including in commercial and paid presentations — no permission or licence needed.

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In context

Evoking the themes of wisdom and change. Theme: "I believe the market is going to fluctuate". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Provenance

Where the anecdote actually starts

Earliest known telling
Wall Street Journal, October 1922
Credited then
John D. Rockefeller, on Standard Oil securities
This exact wording
Security Speculation: The Dazzling Adventure, 1926
Credited there
J. P. Morgan, on the stock market as a whole

Young man, I believe the market is going to fluctuate. Laurence H. Sloan, Security Speculation: The Dazzling Adventure, 1926

This is the earliest appearance Quote Investigator locates for the wording people actually quote — and the speaker is Morgan, not Rockefeller. Four years earlier the same joke had been told about Rockefeller in different words and about a different subject: not the stock market at large, but Standard Oil’s own securities, which was a thing he genuinely knew from the inside. QI notes the story had to be altered once it moved to Morgan, who had no special knowledge of Standard Oil.

Quote Investigator: 'I Believe the Market Is Going to Fluctuate'

How we traced it

  • The earliest instance Quote Investigator located ↗ is an anecdote printed in the Wall Street Journal in October 1922 and credited to Henry Poor, the founder of the firm that became Standard & Poor’s. QI points out the obvious problem in its own words: Poor “died in 1905 several years before the article presenting the tale was published.” In that version the question is about Standard Oil securities and the answer is ‘I think they will fluctuate.’
  • After that the story simply changes hands. QI records it credited to Rockefeller again in the Washington Post in 1924, to J. P. Morgan in Laurence H. Sloan’s 1926 book Security Speculation: The Dazzling Adventure — which is where our exact sentence first appears — to Rockefeller once more in 1927, to William Rockefeller in 1928, and by 1934 to J. Pierpont Morgan, Jay Gould or Jesse Livermore depending on who was telling it the full chronology ↗.
  • Wikiquote is worth checking against this, because it shows how the line settled. Its J. P. Morgan page ↗ carries only the four-word form, “It will fluctuate”, cited to Jean Strouse’s Morgan: American Financier (Random House, 1999), p. 11 — not the longer sentence in circulation. Its John D. Rockefeller page ↗ has no fluctuate entry at all, in any section. So the credit this wording arrives with — Rockefeller — is the one Wikiquote does not connect to the remark at all.
Public domain

Both printings this page rests on are old enough to be free of United States copyright: the Wall Street Journal item of October 1922, and Laurence H. Sloan’s Security Speculation: The Dazzling Adventure of 1926, where this exact sentence first appears. Works published in the United States before 1931 are in the public domain. The anecdote itself has no identified author to hold a right in it. This is not legal advice.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

Whose line is it, then?

In the space of forty years this joke was told about at least five different financiers. That is the signature of a floating anecdote rather than a remembered remark.

John D. Rockefeller, via a dead witness earliest, and already shaky

The Wall Street Journal ran it in October 1922 as a story told by Henry Poor. Poor died in 1905, so the anecdote reached print through a narrator who could not be asked about it QI on the 1922 item ↗.

J. P. Morgan where this wording begins

Laurence H. Sloan’s Security Speculation: The Dazzling Adventure gives the sentence quoted on this page. Because Morgan had no inside knowledge of Standard Oil, the question had to be broadened from those securities to the market in general — the alteration that produced the modern line QI on the 1926 item ↗.

William Rockefeller, Jay Gould, Jesse Livermore 1928 to 1934

QI records the remark handed to William Rockefeller in 1928 and, by 1934, to J. Pierpont Morgan, Jay Gould or Jesse Livermore in the same newspaper item. A saying that fits five different men equally well belongs to none of them the chronology ↗.

Morgan — but a shorter sentence not the same line

Wikiquote gives Morgan only “It will fluctuate”, cited to Jean Strouse’s biography, p. 11. The longer sentence in circulation is not what it records, and its Rockefeller page does not carry the remark at all Wikiquote on Morgan ↗.

No documentary evidence puts this sentence in Rockefeller’s mouth, or in Morgan’s. The earliest telling is second-hand from a man seventeen years dead, and the wording quoted today was first printed about a different financier entirely Quote Investigator’s account ↗.

Context

Why it keeps getting retold

The joke works because it is a refusal dressed as an answer. Someone wants a tip; the great man gives a statement that is completely true, completely useless, and impossible to argue with. It flatters the teller and deflates the asker in one move, which is why it has survived a century of being reassigned.

It also explains why it drifts. The humour does not depend on who says it, only that he is rich enough for the question to make sense. Any sufficiently famous financier will do — and over forty years, most of them got a turn.

A saying that fits five different men equally well belongs to none of them.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Wisdom Change

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quote Investigator: 'I Believe the Market Is Going to Fluctuate'quoteinvestigator.com

The full chronology, 1922 to 1966, and the reason QI calls the supporting evidence problematic.
J. P. Morgan on Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Carries the short ‘It will fluctuate’ form, cited to Jean Strouse’s biography, p. 11.
John D. Rockefeller on Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Notable for what is missing: no fluctuate entry in any section, sourced or disputed.
John D. Rockefeller on Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

Life, Standard Oil and the philanthropy — background on the man the line is pinned to.
J. P. Morgan on Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

The financier the anecdote transferred to in 1926, and where it has mostly stayed.

Credited, but not the source

Why it gets pinned on Rockefeller

John D. Rockefeller

1839–1937 · American businessman and philanthropist

John Davison Rockefeller Sr. (1839–1937) founded Standard Oil in 1870 and became the defining American industrialist of his age, later giving away a fortune through the foundations, universities and medical institutes that still carry his name. He attracts market wisdom he never uttered for a simple reason: a man that rich is assumed to have had a system, and a one-line system is exactly what this anecdote offers. The tell is that the same joke has been told about at least four other financiers.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Earliest documented appearance

Earliest known telling: Wall Street Journal, October 1922, in the form ‘I think they will fluctuate’. This exact wording: Laurence H. Sloan, Security Speculation: The Dazzling Adventure (1926), where it is credited to J. P. Morgan. Chronology traced by Quote Investigator.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘I believe the market is going to fluctuate’?” Last verified 4 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/i-believe-the-market-is-going-to-fluctuate/

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