Market cross

“ Every day we hear of combinations, Farmers’ Alliances, rural co-operative movements, etc., each designed to regulate the market for eggs, butter, potatoes, and such things, and each having for its purpose the very functions which govern a Stock Exchange in its own field—namely, the establishment of a fair price under the nearest possible approach to ideal conditions. ”

“ It will at once be seen that although the Stock Exchange may be defined as a mere market, the wares that are displayed and dealt in are of such importance as to entitle it to the more ambitious definitions with which it has been exalted. It is worthy of being defined as the mart of the world, because these wares represent property in every part of the world, and because the orders which are executed in this mere market emanate from all over the world. The business of the Stock Exchange is more varied and cosmopolitan than that of any other mart, except, perhaps, the Money Market. ”

“ The anomalous state of the Money Market proceeds, we believe, from a redundancy, not of mere paper, but of capital which cannot find investment, superinduced by stagnation of trade, and the want of commercial enterprise, occasioned by the restrictive nature of our duties on imports.—Morning Chronicle.
The accounts from the United States mention that the greatest activity prevails among the manufacturers in their purchases of the raw material for the year's consumption. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The stock of the country, not being sufficient for the whole accession of business which such acquisitions present to the different people among whom it is divided, is applied to those particular branches only which afford the greatest profit. Part of what had before been employed in other trades, is necessarily withdrawn from them, and turned into some of the new and more profitable ones. In all those old trades, therefore, the competition comes to be less than before. The market comes to be less fully supplied with many different sorts of goods. ”

“ So long as there was no large-enough combination of capital to acquire knowledge of the supply and demand that determines market price or to any extent control it, no man, however intelligent, could tell when prices were going to rise and when to fall. ”

“ Hence we see that just as every farmer in the West and every cotton-grower in the South must have a stable market for his products, so every laborer in our great industrial field is directly concerned with the maintenance of a stable market for the securities of the company that employs him. The interests of one are the interests of all, and speculation, in one form or another, underlies all industrial progress. ”

“ The outside public had for a long time been holding aloof from the stock market, owing both to the railway and industrial prosecutions, and hostile State legislation, and the great activity in trade, and in land, mining, and other speculation calling for a great deal of money. ”

“ We recognize a short-loan market, a stock exchange, a number of "markets" where lenders and borrowers are brought together by the aid of various intermediaries, such as banks, bill brokers, and stock jobbers, who correspond to dealers in commodities. ”

“ When some favorite railroad stocks are to be forced upon the market, these brokers, who can do so at pleasure, supply the money market, and sell the stocks at a large profit; and when the object is to reduce the value of stocks, they withdraw from circulation a sufficient amount of the currency to cause a stringency in the market, until their end is accomplished. ”

“ They keep their fingers on the pulse of trade, know mine outputs, crop prospects, cattle productions, stability of governments, possibilities of revolutions or political unrest, the condition of business—in a word everything that has any bearing on banking or that could by any possibility reflect on the money market. ”

“ The experience that crises are caused by blind, anarchic production, i. e., that production is carried on without a knowledge of the volume of supply, of sales and of demand of and for the several goods in the world's market, has, as indicated in previous passages, caused large manufacturers in several branches of industry to join in Trusts and rings, partly with the view of steadying prices, partly also for the purpose of regulating production by the light of previous experience and of the orders received. ”

“ As a matter of Stock Exchange experience such a condition seldom arises, because the Stock Exchange discounts the future, foresees those economic conditions that spell prosperity for the country, and advances the prices of securities on a money market that has not yet felt the demands of improved conditions. ”

“ I say farther, that the beneficial trade will last for a time only. For the infallible consequence of the rise of prices at home will be, that those nations which at first consumed your manufactures, perceiving the gradual increase of their price, will begin to work for themselves; or finding out your rivals who can supply them cheaper, will open their doors to them. These again, perceiving the great advantages gained by your traders, will begin to supply the market ”

“ If the market price rises high above the cost of production, producers make a profit greater than the average profit made in the country. This induces them, by the appropriation of new land and the employment of new labor and capital, to increase their business. ”

“ This effect is much promoted by the existence of large capitals, belonging to what are called speculative merchants, whose business it is to buy goods in order to resell them at a profit. These dealers naturally buying things when they are cheapest, and storing them up to be brought again into the market when the price has become unusually high ”

“ In the only remaining and by far most comprehensive class of cases, in which the Supply of Commodities and Services and Credits can be readily and indefinitely increased to meet enhanced Demand, and easily withdrawn from market and stored when Demand declines, each rise and fall of market-rate tends to be speedily checked through the mere action of Supply ”

“ While the opening up of what the economists call the 'world market,' has necessitated, as a condition of successful competition, improved methods of production for, and carriage to, the market, a third and less obvious force has effected an important change in the method of distribution in the market. ”

“ Contrary to the prevailing notion that there is no public utility in anything which does not produce something, or that does not transform and improve products by the processes of manufacture, or interchange them by the operations of commerce, the Stock Exchange is an institution of the highest utility and of vital necessity in an age and country of progress, of commercial and financial activity and of material development. ”

“ With an advance in a people's public economy, we find an increased rapidity of circulation connected, both as cause and effect. Every improvement, every thing which shortens the process of production, must facilitate and accelerate the circulation of commodities. And so, the perfecting of the means of transport of commodities, of the media of exchange and of credit, an increase in the number of middlemen who make it their business to purchase in order to sell again. On the other hand, the more rapid the circulation of wealth, the more can it promote production. ”

“ As most merchants are content with much less than 30 per cent., he will be able, if he wishes, to forego some of that profit, lower the price of the commodity, and drive the old-fashioned trader—the man who trades on his own capital—out of the market. In modern English business, owing to the certainty of obtaining loans on discount of bills or otherwise at a moderate rate of interest, there is a steady bounty on trading with borrowed capital, and a constant discouragement to confine yourself solely or mainly to your own capital. ”

“ There is an agreement to fix prices and production is limited to what will sell at the fixed price. Then there are fights made against any one outside of the combination who undertakes to produce that line of goods. The trust magnate knows well that to control a market he must limit the amount of goods for sale by combining to fight competition. ”

“ Out of this necessity there have grown up a number of special organizations which exist for the special purpose of facilitating these readjustments. The market which brought the modern city into existence is one of these devices. More interesting, however, are the exchanges, particularly the stock exchange and the board of trade, where prices are constantly being made in response to changes, or rather the reports of changes, in economic conditions all over the world. ”

“ If we look about us to-day we find in all the great centres of the world Stock Exchanges at work in this important field. We find that just in proportion to the confidence which a country feels in the strength and uprightness of such a market, so enterprise goes forward with vigor, and so the national wealth increases. ”

“ Speculation, moreover, makes a market for securities that otherwise would not exist. It enables railroads to be built 98through the ready sale of their bonds, thus adding materially to the wealth of the whole country, and opening a more profitable market to labor. In this it becomes the forerunner of enterprise and material prosperity in business. ”

“ The consensus of opinion among those who have studied the course of speculation on exchanges seems, however, to be that if manipulation of prices and monopoly can be kept out of the market, and if the laws of supply and demand are allowed to operate freely, the effect of speculation, particularly of dealing in futures, has a healthful balancing effect on the market. ”

“ Money in the summer months is apt to be low and exchange high, affording a good basis on which to sell exchange. Then, if the expected crops materialize, large amounts of exchange drawn against exports will come into the market, forcing down rates and giving [Pg 341] the operator who has previously sold his long bills an excellent chance to cover them profitably as they come due. ”

“ We build railways, put millions into steel plants, "boom" land sites, and form combinations of all kinds, employing the credit facilities granted by the banks, or throwing the securities on the stock market. We "water" the stock or, if that be forbidden by law, we drive the market quotations to a high point, because we think that this is warranted by prospective earnings. ”

“ In this way has the Stock Market been established and forced from its original situation by a set of jobbers and brokers, who are all, it will be seen, interested in keeping their transactions from the eye of the public. These men being always ready either to buy or sell, renders it easy for the brokers to get their business done, having no trouble but merely stepping into the Stock Exchange. ”

“ That the free and open market, in which all honest money and all honest commodities are free to be given and received in exchange for each other, is the true, final, absolute, and only test of the true and natural market value of all money, as of all the other commodities that are bought and sold for money. ”

“ Every one was honestly busy in learning either how to make or how to sell, and in conquering the difficulties that beset traders as they strove to push their way into the world’s market on equal or, if possible, more than equal terms with competitors who had long held unquestioned supremacy. ”

“ Market prices of products and of securities are hourly known in every commercial mart, and the investments of the people extend beyond their own national boundaries into the remotest parts of the earth. ”

“ He will also without difficulty understand that the more limited the market is, the more easily will it be glutted, and the more subject will industry be to periodical stagnation; and that, on the other hand, the wider the market is for the products of labor, the more constant will be its employment. ”

“ Buyers seek the largest market they can get in order to obtain the lowest prices; sellers, in order to obtain the highest prices; and so it was learned long ago that economy of time and labor, as well as a theoretically perfect market, could be best secured by an organization under one roof of as many dealers in a commodity as could be found.2 Bear in mind that this result, moreover, is best accomplished when the organization is so controlled by rigid rules of business morality as to insure to every one who does business there, great and small, rich and poor, an absolutely square deal. ”

“ Finally, in the course of time the market for industrial stock, bank stock, and railway shares will gradually become less restricted, in proportion as the public fortune becomes more extensively subdivided, instead of being concentrated, as it is at present, in a comparatively small number of hands. ”

“ Or, on the contrary, the competition may cease before the value has risen in even the proportion of the deficiency. A rise, short of one-third, may place the article beyond the means, or beyond the inclinations, of purchasers to the full amount. At what point, then, will the rise be arrested? At the point, whatever it be, which equalizes the demand and the supply: at the price which cuts off the extra third from the demand, or brings forward additional sellers sufficient to supply it. ”