Marketman

“ What are known as "markets" are groups of jobbers distributed about the house, each group having its own particular dealings, one in Government Stocks, another in English rail- ways, a third in Foreign securities, and so on. A broker having received an order from a customer to sell £1,000 Great Eastern Railway Stock, would go to the English railway group and inquire of a jobber the price or quotation for Great Easterns, without disclosing whether he wants to buy or to sell. ”

“ By and by, when everybody has found his place and settled down to stay, the home market of the producer will not be as good as it now is nor the prices so high. But by then he will have placed himself in comfort, and need not worry over market prices. ”

“ Those who lived near a town were permitted to sell their products in the market place within the walls on condition that they sold directly to the consumers. They might not dispose of their whole stock to one dealer, for fear that if he had all there was of a commodity he might raise the price above a just one. ”

“ Certes I may speak of them right well as feeling the harm in that I am a buyer, nevertheless I speak generally in each of them.
To conclude therefore, in our markets all things are to be sold necessary for man’s use; and there is our provision made commonly for all the week ensuing. Therefore, as there are no great towns without one weekly market at least, so there are very few of them that have not one or two fairs or more within [Pg 42] the compass of the year, assigned unto them by the prince. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If from investigation it appears that there is a market for one’s goods in any section or universally, that quality and prices can be such as to make competition favorable, that the market can be enlarged, or should there be none that one can be created, and a determination is therefore formed to enter export trade, the next question is how the goods shall be sold. ”

“ A business which should consist in going out at night to look for goods to sell in the day would obviously be impossible. You find the instinct of forestalling the market in the very match-seller. How to forestall the market—that is the one idea of the so-called honest tradesman of the Rue Saint-Denis, as of the most brazen-fronted speculator. If stocks are heavy, sell you must. ”

“ If there ever was a man with no stomach for the market it was me. But then someone roared out:
“'At seven-eighths, sell Rubber Consols! Sell five hundred Rubber at seven-eighths! Sell five hundred at three-quarters! At three-quarters you have 'em! Rubber Consols! Sell a thou. at three-quarters!'
“This thing went into my brain like a live coal. I stopped and looked up at the fellow—and by God, it was one of the men I've been talking about—one of those Kaffir scoundrels. ”

“ The modern buyer, on the other hand, is for the most part the mere puppet of the dealer. He buys at the top price of the market because he believes the market will maintain its price, and with a prudence that the dealer is careful to foster he makes his choice from among those{132} older pictures whereof the market value has been appraised by time. ”

“ The ninety-five, made up of those who do not know and admit it and the fifteen who do not know but do not admit it, constitute the real market for any product. The five who want something special may or may not be able to pay the price for special work. If they have the price, they can get the work, but they constitute a special and limited market. Of the ninety-five perhaps ten or fifteen will pay a price for quality. Of those remaining, a number will buy solely on price and without regard to quality. Their numbers are thinning with each day. Buyers are learning how to buy. ”

“ This is accomplished by a species of middlemen or factors, persons possessing some capital, who, whenever the price of any of the articles in which they deal is greatly reduced, purchase it on their own account, in the hopes of selling at a profit when the market is better. These persons, in ordinary times, act as salesmen or agents, and make up assortments of goods at the market price, for the use of the home or foreign dealer. ”

“ There in the great market-place, with the sun beating down on their bare heads, they stood, looking with dull, despairing eyes, or with frightened glances at the crowds of buyers and sellers who were bargaining around. ”

“ The manner in which the wealth created by the toiling millions, passed through the channels of trade, into the possession of a few wealthy speculators, was illustrated by pictures and printed explanations, in almost endless variety, so that even the most obtuse observers, could not fail to get a clear idea of the practical workings of a system of commercial exchange, under the operation of which, interest, profit and rent were always added to the market price of the product, every time it changed hands. ”

“ The market has existed there from ancient times; and, no doubt, the fluttering of its cheap ribbons, its toys, and comestibles, have from age to age drawn thither the same crowd of purchasers which frequents its rows and alleys at this day. ”

“ 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. ”

“ You would have secured a much better bargain, no doubt, had there been twenty dealers in the room competing with each other, and a still better bargain had their number been fifty, or a hundred, or two hundred, because that would mean competition, and the more competition there is, in close contact and governed by rigid business rules, the more certain the approach to a perfect price. Everywhere in the world fairs and other gatherings of merchants are held at periodic intervals because people demand them in their effort to secure proper prices by competitive bidding and offering. ”

“ We draw such fine distinctions between the wholesale and retail traders that our cotton-spinners, calico-makers, and general merchants seem to think that they belong to a totally different sphere, from which they look down on the lady who has had sufficient brains, capital, and courage to open a shop. ”

“ 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. ”

“ One man, or two, or a hundred cannot make a market, because the immense volume and variety of these securities make it impossible for any unorganized handful of brokers and dealers to determine a fair market price.41 What is required, and what the man whose capital is wanted insists upon, is an organized body of brokers, speculators, and investors competing keenly, seeking to buy cheap and sell dear, gathering and disseminating all the news, and so sharpening the judgment and stimulating the higgling of buyers and sellers as to bring prices to their legitimate level and give them stability. ”

“ As a scientific salesman, do not forget to consider the buyer. He is buying scientifically. He is suspicious. Every one is trying to drive [188] a very close bargain. He tries to make you yield on price, to make some concessions on payments, to give special privileges about returning goods, etc. Beware of all these tactics. Here, again, you must consult frequently, and with confidence, your sales manager. He knows the tricks of your particular trade, and he will be able to give you proper coaching. ”

“ This broker's shop was the resort of scores of people of small means, trades-folk, clerks, salaried dependents and some women, keen to acquire from the fluctuations of the speculative markets a few crumbs of the huge gains garnered by the magnates of Wall Street, of which they read emulously in the newspapers. To put up one's thirty dollars, and to have one's margin of venture or profit wiped out within twenty-four hours, was the normal experience, sooner or later, of ninety per cent. ”

“ As large and populous as is the market, it is conducted with the greatest order. There is a particular place appropriated for the sale of each class of goods: thus in one place may be seen spinners offering their yarn to those who weave; in another, weavers offering their cloths; then those who sell iron-ware, sitting in their own quarters, and next to them the dealers in beads and other ornaments: here is the meat-market, and there the wood-market, and the clothing-market, and the place for the sale of live-stock, etc. etc. One man manages the entire affair with the greatest ease. ”

“ Trading under the old regime was a traffic in goods; under the new regime there is added, as the dominant and characteristic trait, trading in capital. Both in the capital and in the goods market there are professional traders, as well as buyers and sellers who resort to the market to dispose of their holdings and to supply their needs of what the market affords. In either class of trading the ends sought by those engaged in the business are generically the same. ”

“ We enjoyed the confidence of the large importers and dealers and were in close touch with the consuming trade throughout the country. Our facilities for getting information as to stocks in the aggregate and individually were unequalled. The large consumers posted us in advance of what their requirements would be for certain periods. If the large city dealers were manipulating the market it was done through our office and we knew their plans. ”

“ These markets are in addition to the numerous local markets where the preliminary concentration takes place, and to some extent they are subsidiary to the latter, where the cotton of the actual quantity and quality they are seeking is to be had in the first instance. Yet it is the great markets which establish the 20 prices, for it is they which are in close and immediate touch with all the other markets of the world, and it is on their floors that the merchants and brokers meet who deal in great quantities. ”

“ One week a staple article would soar 200 per cent. above its original selling price. The following week perhaps the same article could not be sold at any price because of a glutted market."—California: Men and Events. By George H. Tinkham. Stockton. 1915. p. 116.
"Great quantities of goods were piled up in the open air, for want of a place to store them ."—Taylor's El Dorado, p. 55.
"Men dart hither and thither, as if possessed of a never resting spirit. You speak to an acquaintance—a merchant perhaps. ”

“ Very often within sound of each other's voices traders are paying different prices for a good. On the occasion of a break in the stock-market, excited traders within ten feet of each other make bids that differ by thousands of dollars. Retail and wholesale merchants may be purchasing goods in the same room at the same time at very different prices. But within a group of buyers and sellers where competition is approximately complete, price is fixed with some degree of exactness. ”

“ It is true, therefore, of every particular producer or dealer, that a great demand, a brisk circulation, a rapid consumption, of the commodities which he sells at his shop or produces in his manufactory, is important to him. The dealer whose shop is crowded with customers, who can dispose of a product almost the very moment it is completed, makes large profits, while his next neighbour, with an equal capital but fewer customers, gains comparatively little. ”

“ At all events, we mailed a few letters to customers explaining the matter, and a business on this basis was commenced and quickly grew to large proportions.
This fact made it dangerous, for the larger the business the greater the risk. We had to continually have an interest in the market either on one side or the other, and if the business was large our interest must be in proportion.
For some time the business was most satisfactory. My judgment of the market was correct, our customers were well pleased, and we made good profits. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The bookmakers are a noisy, but, on the whole, an honest and withal humourous crowd, some offering to lay a starting price at “Newmarket, Stewmarket, or any old market,—starting price anywhere and everywhere,” while a rival will go so far as to declare: “We pay you whether you win or not.” ”

“ Excepting where a very large demand meets an insufficient supply in a free, open and comparatively unmanipulated market, where sales are regularly made of record and those records command the respect and confidence of the legitimate financial public, there is no "market value" save that which is arbitrarily made by the broker. He is the market ”