Brokerage

“ A single brokerage house becomes thoroughly acquainted with the client's business and personnel, with the result that the two organizations work in harmony virtually as partners, confusion and misunderstandings are avoided, quicker and more advantageous transactions are made possible. ”

“ He acts “as a middleman, bringing people together to trade, or trading for them in the private purchase or sale of any kind of property, which property, ordinarily, is not in his possession.” The charge for his service is usually in the form of a commission, sometimes called brokerage. There are several classes of brokers, named according to the kind of commodity they deal in; for instance, there is the exchange broker, the note broker, the insurance broker, the stock broker, the real estate broker, the merchandise broker, etc. ”

“ The broker, therefore, is quite as anxious for his clients to make money as they are themselves. More profit, more margin; more margin, more commissions and less risk. There you have it in a nutshell.
The stockbroker says to the public: “My dear sir, here is an open market. Nowhere else can you get such large and quick returns on so small an investment. For these opportunities I charge you the ridiculously small percentage of one-eighth of one per cent., and loan you, besides, ninety per cent. of your investment. Could any man with a proper regard for his wife and children do better by you? ”

“ The business of the stock-broker is just as legitimate and necessary as that of a dealer in clothes, groceries, or hardware; and a man may be as pure-minded and holy a Christian at the Board of Brokers as in a prayer-meeting. The broker is, in the sight of God, as much entitled to his commissions as any hard-working mechanic is entitled to his day's wages. Any man has as much right to make money by the going up of stocks as by the going up of sugar, rice, or tea. The inevitable board-book that the operator carries in his hand may be as pure as the clothing merchant's ledger. ”

“ Strictly speaking, the broker lives on these commissions, though, of course, his intimate knowledge of the market affords him special facilities for speculating and investing on his own account. He must not, however, it may be repeated, deal with his own clients; directly he buys or sells for himself he becomes a principal, and is not in that connection a broker at all. Moreover, he must not arrange with the jobber to whom he takes the business for part of the profit which the jobber makes. ”

“ Transfers of inscribed stock have to be explained, and the client has to be identified at the bank, share certificates have to be obtained and delivered, arrangements have to be made for carrying over shares when a client does not desire to pay for them at the time of settlement, other detailed duties of the kind have to be performed, and, above all, the broker is frequently called upon to give expert advice as to investments and speculations, and to keep the client informed as to when to buy or sell. ”

“ Your broker buys a stock for you, but as he has to pay for it in full, it is customary for him to take it to his bank and borrow money on it. A bank usually lends about 80% of the market value, but if some other broker wants to borrow this stock, he will lend the full value of it. If that particular stock is very scarce and hard to get, the lender of the stock may [66] get the use of the money without any interest. ”

“ Every transaction in the stock market, whether it be in Government stock, or in railway shares, or in any other securities, must be effected through the medium of a broker, who is thus not only an adviser but an indispensable agent in the transaction. Be sure to employ a broker of good standing, and, having found a trustworthy man, be rather guided by his advice than by your own notions as to what purchases are safe and what imprudent.
All documents connected with investments should be carefully preserved, and dividends, when they fall due, should be looked after. ”

“ The outsider buys from or sells to the jobber through the medium of the broker. The broker, except in special cases, may not do business direct with his client, although the rule is sometimes honoured in the breach; it is the custom of many a broker to inform the client of the name of the jobber from whom he has bought the stock, and it is within the right of the client even to examine the jobber's book to see that the transaction has been properly carried through. ”

“ The brokers execute the orders of bankers, merchants, and private individuals; and the jobbers are the persons with whom they deal. When the broker appears in the market, he is at once surrounded by eager jobbers. One of the cries of the Stock Exchange is, 'Borrow money? borrow money?'—a singular cry to general apprehension, but it of course implies that the credit of the borrower must be first-rate, or his security of the most satisfactory nature, and that it is not the principal who goes into the market, but only the principal's broker. ”

“ HOW BUSINESS IS TRANSACTED When the broker, armed with his client's order, goes to the market in which it can be executed, and confronts the jobber with whom he usually deals because he finds he does his business best, he asks the jobber to make him a price in the stock concerned. ”

“ By the same section, subd. 9, a broker is defined to be one whose business it is to negotiate purchases or sales of stocks, exchange, bullion, coined money, bank-notes, promissory notes, or other securities, for himself or for others. Ordinarily, the term 'broker' is applied to one acting for others; but the part of the definition which speaks of purchases and sales for himself is equally important as that which speaks of sales and purchases for others. ”

“ Just in the same manner, if you wanted to buy some stock, you would go to a stockbroker for it, and not to a stockjobber—the stockbroker occupying the same position as Marshall and Snelgrove, while the stockjobber stands in the place of the wholesale house in the City.
The stockjobber, or wholesale merchant, is always ready both to buy and sell with the broker. If you give an order to the latter, he darts into the Stock Exchange, and without disclosing the nature of his order to the jobber, inquires of him the price of the particular stock which you wish to deal in. ”

“ It must be looked at as a whole, and its vice consists, I apprehend, in this: that the broker is to make the contract of purchase for another whose interest as buyer is to have the advantage of every turn of the market; but if the broker may eventually have to provide the goods as principal, then it becomes his interest as seller that the price which he is to receive should have been as much in favor of the seller as the state of the market would admit. ”

“ Is that it?”
“Yes, that is the way they do it.”
“Well, I guess you are right, then, Herbert—you and Tom.”
[Pg 176] “I feel sure I am. Mr. Goldwin talked with me about it today, and told me never to speculate.”
“But he speculates,” said Bob, “and he is worth a lot of money.”
“Oh, no, never.”
“What’s he call himself a broker for, then?”
“Why, a broker is not necessarily a speculator. A broker is one who buys and sells stocks or bonds for some one else—for a speculator, and he gets his commission or pay for doing the business.” ”

“ In large cities the brokers naturally unite for convenience of business in the so-called stock exchange, in which the market price of all current forms of indebtedness or deferred payments is fixed from day to day, or from hour to hour, by the higgling of the market, just as the price of produce is fixed in the produce exchange. Naturally, as in the case of produce, a fictitious business, purely speculative, grows up around the legitimate dealing [pg 163] in stocks and bonds. ”

“ But his business ability was of a broader type than was needed for such services only, and in the process of evolution, through which the old-fashioned broker was practically eliminated, his place being taken by a new type of dealer, who although not always or even usually trading for his own account, yet makes most of his transactions in his own name, and is chiefly differentiated from the jobber only from the fact that he buys and sells in round parcels and does not break them up to shop out into smaller lots. ”

“ All parts of the definition are qualified by the words 'whose business it is.' Thus, if A. B. has $10,000 which he desires to invest, and purchases United States stock, or State stock, or any other securities, he does not thereby become a broker. ”

“ Suppose a buyer has purchased, for the next account day, more stock than he can take up, he has to arrange for the bargain being continued or carried over to the next account day. If he be an outsider and not a member of the Stock Exchange, he must of course get it arranged through his broker. Application is then made to a dealer who has money to lend, and perhaps, wants the stock. ”

“ SIR THOMAS GRESHAM
The usual commission charged by a broker is one-eighth (2s. 6d.) per cent. upon the stock sold or purchased; although of late years the charge has often been reduced fifty per cent., especially in speculators' charges, a reduction ascribed to the influx into the market of a body of brokers who will "do business" almost for nothing, provided they can procure customers. The broker deals with the "jobbers," a class of members, or "middle-men," who remain stationary in the stock market, ready to act upon the orders received from brokers. ”

“ At all events, the buyer is in practical possession of the stock for some time before he pays for it, and that is why a broker requires an introduction with proper references, and, perhaps, even security, before he will enter into transactions for an unknown client. Cases have been known of people buying stock and carrying out the bargain faithfully, provided they can sell it at a profit before Settlement day arrives, and thus receive a cheque through the broker; whereas if Settlement day arrives before the price has risen, the buyer has vanished. ”

“ Therefore, there is an advantage to the broker in lending stock, and for that reason it is nearly always possible for a broker to arrange delivery of stock for you if you wish to sell short. When you instruct him later on to buy the stock for you, he will do so and deliver it to the broker from whom he borrowed it, who will return the money he received for it. ”

“ As to the advice, however, a broker may have to offer in the way of investments, it must be remembered that he is no more than mortal, and would at times be prone to submit such securities as he him- self, on behalf of a client, would most desire to dispose of. In this way, too, the country broker is liable to be pressed by his London agent to get rid of particular stocks or shares which hang heavy on hand. However, bearing this well in mind, an investor may gain much useful infor- mation from his broker, although for sound advice his banker is to be preferred. ”

“ We now have to discuss the position of those persons who can only offer their banker the deeds of house property, land, and those other securities for which the market is a purely local, and, therefore, uncertain one. A banker, whose deposits are mostly payable at call and short notice, naturally prefers to advance against those securities that are quoted on a Stock Exchange, and does not care to lock up a large proportion of his resources in house property, etc., of which he cannot readily dispose in an emergency. ”

“ The directors of a railway company, instead of locking up their money, send the £12,000 or £14,000 a week to a broker, to be lent on proper securities. Persons who pay large duties to Government at fixed periods, lend the sums for a week or two. A person intending to lay out his capital in mortgage or real property, lends out the sum till he meets with a suitable offer. The great bankers lend their surplus cash on the Stock Exchange. A jobber, at the close of the day, will lend his money at 1 per cent., rather than not employ it at all. ”

“ Competition for an advance, which is covered by tangible securities, is keen both in London and the provinces, and competition, we must remember, tends to reduce the rate. Then, again, assuming that the Bank rate be 3 per cent., and that a banker suggests 4 per cent. on an advance covered by railway debentures, the customer may not see the force of maintaining a margin of 10 per cent. between the market-price of his stock for the protection of his banker, and paying him, say, 3⁄4 per cent. ”

“ It is so whether the purchases or sales are by investors or speculators, for speculation on the Stock Exchange is not gambling. Whether stocks, or bonds, are bought, or sold, by investors or speculators is immaterial between the contracting brokers on the floor of the Exchange. They know no difference whatever. Delivery of the stocks or bonds is made by the one, and received by the other, in every case, and payments made accordingly, at the sale and purchase prices, investment and speculative transactions being treated exactly alike. ”

“ He buys and sells from himself, but publicly, giving other brokers the chance to buy or sell if they wish. The broker, according to the rules of the New York Stock Exchange, cannot execute this transaction secretly in his office, but must offer the securities in question on the exchange, and the purchase and sale must be recorded on the ticker. ”

“ The rule thus established by the courts of the state where such transactions are the most numerous, and which has long been adopted and generally followed as a settled rule of law, should not be lightly disturbed, and an examination of the cases and the principles upon which they rest leads us to the conclusion that in no just sense can the broker be held to be the owner of the shares of stock which he purchases and carries for his customer. ”