Stock dove

“ It was much easier and much more lucrative to put forth a lying prospectus announcing a new stock, to persuade ignorant people that the dividends could not fall short of 20 per cent, and to part with £5,000 of this imaginary wealth for 10,000 solid guineas than to load a ship with a well chosen cargo for Virginia or the Levant. ”

“ By concerted action they may "bang the market," indulge in a "Bear raid," and bring prices down to a level much lower than is warranted by the intrinsic merits of the security which they have attacked. The talk is all gloom. At the end of the raid, however, the position of the Bear is an exceedingly dangerous one; he may find it impossible to obtain the stock which, having sold, he has undertaken to deliver. Prices begin to rise again, and the "Bear covering," or buying back, only enhances the upward movement. In time it may become impossible to buy back at any price ”

“ All of a sudden the bears have rushed in, the mine has exploded, his hopes are blown into air, vanished like a dream; his shares are so much waste-paper. He goes home certainly a sadder if not a wiser man. Well for him if he is not a beggar. This is how they manage matters on the stock-exchange. ”

“ Well, the king might have gone on, still happy and unsuspecting, to the end of his days, but for one of your modern improvements—the stock-board. When you left, three miles of the London, Canterbury and Dover were ready for the rails, and also ready and ripe for manipulation in the stock-market. It was wildcat, and everybody knew it. The stock was for sale at a give-away. ”

“ It’s certainly disheartening to see the place looking its worst, and the stock getting poorer each week—there’s nothing jollier than riding over it when the grass is knee-deep and the creeks and the river high, and all the stock rolling fat, and the horses kicking up their heels with sheer joy at being alive. ”

“ Watered stock is new stock issued by a railroad or other corporation that already has a certain amount of stock in existence, but claims that it does not fairly represent, through increase of the value of a property and franchises, the increase of actual capital. ”

“ A sudden fear tugged at the skipper’s heart.
“Ain’t that all right?” he rumbled anxiously. “It’s stock in your comp’ny.”
“No, it isn’t—it’s stock in the New York Shipyard Company, whatever that may be. We are the New York Ship Construction Company. Likewise, Mr. Barclay, we employ no salesmen. Never have.”
Barclay did not grasp the full meaning of this at once.
“But—hold hard, Mr. Henderson—I bought your stock. The one that’s printed in the newspaper tally list—N.Y.S.C.”
“This isn’t our stock. Our issue is quoted on the Stock Exchange under the initials you mention. Somebody’s swindled you. ”

“ Men were freighting across to the islands with heavy teams. Automobiles had beaten a rough road along the course the steamers took in summer. A man who had ventured to stock one of the lower islands with foxes for the sake of their fur, counting on the water to hold them prisoners, had gone{22} bankrupt when his stock in trade escaped across the ice. ”

“ When work slacks off here, we could pick that stuff up."
"Conn, there's an old stock-market maxim: 'A bear can make money sometimes, and a bull can make money sometimes, but in the long run, a hog always loses.' Let the other people find some of this; it'll all help the Plan. Fact is, I've been thinking of leaking some information, if I can do it without Fawzi and that gang finding out. Do you know a good supply depot or something like that, say over on Acaire, or on the west coast? Big enough to be important, and to start a second prospectors' rush away from us." ”

“ The market rose to such heights that the selling price of securities listed on the New York Stock Exchange—to say nothing of the untold billions listed on other exchanges—reached a figure far in excess of all the money in the world. Though it was reiterated time and time again that customers’ accounts with brokers were amply protected, they were of course margined with other securities, and thus the pyramid grew until it staggered the imagination even of those who built it. ”

“ Clyde looked up from a letter which enclosed a formal-looking statement. "What would send it up?"
"Buyers in excess of sellers—in other words, demand in excess of supply," Wade responded. "That's on the face of it. Probably not half a dozen men know the inside. Orders may have been issued to support the stock—that is, to buy all offered in order to keep the price from declining farther. It's hard to say, at this distance. It's possible that the depressing rumours may have originated with the very men who are now supporting the stock." ”

“ Barclay rose, slipping the wallet into his pocket.
“I might go as high as six thousand—maybe,” protested the jeweler. “Look here. You won’t get a better price anywhere else in the city—not in these times. I thought you wanted to sell.”
“That right—at twelve thousand.”
“But—”
“I’ll tell you what I got my mind set on.” The skipper bent closer to Braddock, a peculiar gleam in his deep-set eyes, “No, I’m not crazy. I want to buy some more of a kind of stock I’ve invested in. I want twelve thousand dollars to buy that stock.” ”

“ If he be exposed to such a loss at any moment as that mentioned, the risk is an absurd one to run if there is not at least an equal chance of a similar rise, and several times £250 in reserve. But all experienced in Stock Exchange fluctuations know that upward movements are, as a rule, gradual, a rise of 1 per cent. being considered as a profit which a speculator should without hesitation take, while a fall all round in a market of two or three per cent. in a day is of more common occurrence. ”

“ Money would pile up in the banks—money paid out by “The Seven” for their bonds and stocks, of which the people had become deeply suspicious. Then these deposits would be withdrawn—and I knew they were going into real estate investments, because news of booms in real estate and in building was coming in from everywhere. But prices on the Stock Exchange continued to advance.
“They are too strong for you,” said Joe. “They will hold the market up until the public loses faith in you. Then they will sell out at top-notch prices as the people rush in to buy.” ”

“ In this elevation he meets his broker, who throws more fireworks into the mine, and blows him up to so fierce an inflammation, that he employs him instantly to take guineas to accept stock of any kind, and almost at any price; for the news being now public, the artist made their price upon him. In a word, having accepted them for fifty thousand pounds more than he is able to pay, the jobber has got an estate, the broker two or three hundred guineas, and the esquire remains at leisure to sell his coach and horses, his fine seat and rich furniture, to make good the deficiency of his bear-skins ”

“ In both cases the currents of profit starting from the great foci of production, spread, embracing all classes of the community, like the winter’s snows gathered in their wealth in the mountain heights, which are loosened by the summer sun to flow over and irrigate the grateful plains below, and are again gathered up to a large extent for distribution through the Stock Exchanges of Europe. ”

“ We now turn to the non-professional speculator, and what a pitiable plight is that in which these gentlemen in ninety-nine cases out of one hundred ultimately find themselves. The members of the Stock Exchange liken their place of gathering in Capel Court to a barn, and themselves to fowls inside it, who repair thither every day to pick up the golden grain thrown in by the public. ”

“ All the Bulls in the zoological creation would have failed to elevate the drooping stocks and shares and first-preference bonds and debentures, which hung their feeble heads and declined day by day, the weaker of them threatening to fade away and diminish to a vanishing-point, as it seemed to some dejected holders who read the Stock-Exchange lists and the money article in the Times with a persistent hopefulness which struggled against the encroachments of despair. ”

“ 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 possibility occurred to me yesterday—Pacific Southwestern stock being so badly scattered among small holders. I wired a broker, a good friend of mine, to pick up a few shares on my account. Here is what he says: 'Market bone dry. ”

“ Watered stock is capitalizing an industry at a figure in advance of its real value. For example: a railroad has tangible assets of $10,000,000, and an earning capacity sufficient to pay a 6 per cent. dividend on its capitalization; financial giants manipulate the stock and increase it to, say, $20,000,000, watering it to the extent of 100 per cent. In other words, the real value of the stock then is one-half of what it was in the first place. Stock watering has become epidemic, and is the cause of hundreds of thousands of financial failures. ”

“ It would pay you to mortgage your property, or sell it, and use the money in Wall Street.”
“I have about twenty thousand dollars in bank stock.”
“That could readily be sold.”
“What investments would you suggest?”
“I couldn't tell you on the moment; but I think favorably of a mining stock lately put on the market. I have private advices that it is likely to develop extraordinary richness and the stock may even treble in three months.”
“Where is the mine?” asked the squire, eagerly. ”

“ The investor lends his money on perfectly safe security to the aid of commerce and industry, expecting a comparatively small return, but that a safe one. By so doing he is encouraged in thrift, whilst commerce and industry enjoys the benefit of the capital, and the Stock Exchange is the medium of it all. The speculator, less conservative, risks money, the loss of which he is perfectly well able to afford, in the furtherance of experiments in commerce and industry, be it the trial of a patent or the opening up of a mine. ”

“ Left, as stock-hives commonly are, in their summer aspect, and to stand upon the very spot they have occupied ever since the day of their existence as stocks,—with their entrances wide open, just as they were in summer,—exposed alike to every change of weather and to every attack of prowling enemies ”

“ If they meet with a cull, a young dealer that has money to lay out, they catch him at the door, whisper to him, “Sir, here is a great piece of news, it is not yet public, it is worth a thousand guineas but to mention it; I am heartily glad I met you, but it must be as secret as the black side of your soul, for they know nothing of it yet in the coffee-house; if they should, stock would rise ten per cent. in a moment, and I warrant you South Sea will be 130 in a week’s time after it is known.” ”

“ I tip Wilbur off that the Phœnix stock has gone up five points while he was hitting the ties getting here. All right. He's anxious about it now. More movie stuff—cut-in of me refusing a wealthy investor a five-hundred-share block over the wire, Miss Farley being the investor.”
“Don't I figure in this, Al?”
“Then you enter. You're my broker—see? By the way, cut out that knowin' air. You're a busy man. You've just bought a four-hundred-share block in the stock market, and you give me the certificate. I tell Wilbur I ought to let my wealthy client have the stock; it's going up all the time. ”

“ Bear operations seem to go against the grain of the average man who acquires a first taste for speculation, probably by possessing some amount of stock which improves in price after he has bought. Money thus easily made, as it seems to be, out of nothing, encourages other purchases with a view to resale before the settling day arrives. ”

“ The fluctuations in the price of the funds, which were frequent in those unsettled times, presented an irresistible temptation to buying and selling for the account—a process by means of which a small capital may be made to represent fictitiously an enormous amount of stock: no transfers being required, and in fact no sales created, the real stake being the difference between the buying and the selling prices. ”

“ Under the operation of the beautiful stories of the speculative Blunt and his friends, South Sea stock, after a short lull in April, began to rise again, and the bubble swelled and swelled to a size so monstrous, and with colors so gay, that it filled the whole horizon of poor foolish John Bull—perfectly turned his bull-headed brain, and made him for the time absolutely crazy. The directors opened books on April 12th for £5,000,000 new stock, charging, however, £300 for each share of £100, or three hundred per cent, to begin with. ”

“ I said rather wearily, "just now, when I am in deep water with this railroad and all the rest, and the banks calling my loans, some fellows are selling their Meat Products stock. It will all go to my enemies—to Strauss and his crowd, and I shall find myself presently kicked out of the company. I suppose it's Mr. Dround's stock that's coming on the market. It's like him to sell when prices are going down." ”