Forum: english.stackexchange.com
Tags: <word-choice><single-word-requests>
Title: Word for when people store scarce resources to increase demand and sell at higher price
Question: Like storing gasoline to create an artificial demand and sell it a higher price later.

Answers:
sents: text: Profiteering can be used here.
text: From Cambridge Dictionary : profiteer (noun): a person who takes advantage of a situation in which other people are suffering to make a profit, often by selling at a high price goods which are difficult to get.
text: profiteering (noun):
text: The pharmaceutical company has been charged with profiteering from the AIDS crisis.
text: From Oxford Dictionaries : profiteer (verb)
text: : make or seek to make an excessive or unfair profit, especially illegally: seven food merchants were charged with profiteering.
answer_details: author: english.stackexchange.com/users/127/Mehper C. Palavuzlar
score: 8
sents: text: 'Hoarding' is the word that comes to my mind.
text: That at least covers the storage of scarce resources, but I'm not sure if it is really the right word to include selling it at a higher price.
text: How about 'Price-fixing'?
text: That would be a collection of 'competitors', artificailly increasing the price by some means (possibly by limiting supply).
answer_details: author: english.stackexchange.com/users/433/pkaeding
score: 7
sents: text: This is the very definition of " cornering the market ."
answer_details: author: english.stackexchange.com/users/67/moioci
score: 7
sents: text: There is a general phrase that has made itself into a legal one: Price Gouging
text: In New York it reads as follows:
text: New York State’s Price Gouging Law (General Business Law § 396-r) prohibits merchants from taking unfair advantage of consumers by selling goods or services that are “vital to the health, safety or welfare of consumers” for an "unconscionably excessive price" during an abnormal disruption of the market place or state of emergency.
text: An abnormal disruption in the market place may be triggered by "weather events, power failures, strikes, civil disorder, war, military action, national or local emergency, or other causes.” https://ag.ny.gov/price-gouging
answer_details: author: english.stackexchange.com/users/375520/Packard
score: 3
sents: text: Cornering the Market is the best term if you're actually buying so much of the item that prices go up.
text: It rarely happens.
text: Stockpiling implies that you're stocking up on something, without necessarily implying that you plan to profit from that.
text: Profiteering is simply a value-laden term for increasing prices when demand goes up.
text: Hoarding implies keeping a disproportionate share of something for oneselve, not necessarily for profit.
answer_details: author: english.stackexchange.com/users/133/Joel Spolsky
score: 2
sents: text: As I stated in a comment earlier to moioci, "cornering the market" merely means having complete control of it, not necessarily by hoarding a commodity.
text: A few examples, quickly found: Dell set to corner the market for desktop virtualization hardware Apple trying to corner market on location-based advertising?
text: Is a Silver Market Corner Underway?
text: Romero's Undead Island Trying To Corner The Market On Water Zombies Will Microsoft Corner the Desktop Security Market?
text: And even: http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/24
text: My "source" is obvious: widespread, common usage.
text: The definition given in Wikipedia is a narrow one applying to a specific domain.
text: The term has much much broader use.
text: Please, people!
text: Wikipedia is not the holy scriptures!
text: At least look a little bit further!
text: The proper answer would be a combination of all the terms Joel mentioned: "Hoarding and Stockpiling with an intention to Profiteer and Corner the Market".
text: I know of no single word in English for this, but "Cornering the market" is not it.
text: Perhaps you could assemble one in German?
answer_details: author: english.stackexchange.com/users/597/MickeyfAgain_BeforeExitOfSO
score: 1
sents: text: Arbitrage is a related term for taking advantage of difference in prices, and may include storing something for later sale.
text: For instance, if the arbitrageur can secure storage for less than the difference in price between buying today and a contract for sale in the future.
text: This might occur when the market is expecting the price of the commodity to increase dramatically, and therefore prices for future contracts are still high.
text: However, it does not relate to trying to increase demand by lowering supply.
answer_details: author: english.stackexchange.com/users/1348/wuputah
score: 0
sents: text: I believe the word you're looking for is "forestall".
text: According to Webster's dictionary : 1: to prevent the normal trading in by buying or diverting goods or by persuading persons to raise prices forestalling the wheat harvest and selling it at three times its cost — G. B. Shaw
answer_details: author: english.stackexchange.com/users/208469/Alex
score: 0

Summary of the answers:
There may not be any single word that describes such a concept. However, some words that might convey a similar meaning include "Profiteering", "Hoarding", or "Arbitrage" which is a related term for taking advantage of difference in prices.
Profiteering  is one suggestion as according to the Cambridge Dictionary, refers to  a person who takes  advantage of a situation in which  other people are suffering to make a  profit, often by selling at a high  price goods which are difficult to  get.  Others argue that profiteering  is simply a value-laden term for increasing prices when demand goes up.  Hoarding is another suggestion, but this  implies keeping a disproportionate share of something for oneselve, not necessarily for profit. S0: Cornering the Market  is another term if you're actually buying so much of the item that prices go up. But you could argue that "cornering the market" merely means having complete control of it, not necessarily by hoarding a commodity.  There is also a general phrase that has made itself into a legal one:  Price Gouging. And finally, arbitrage  is a related term for taking advantage of difference in prices, and may include storing something for later sale and according to  Webster's dictionary : 'forestall' means to prevent the normal trading in by buying or diverting goods or by persuading persons to raise prices.
Suggested expressions and terms include profiteering, hoarding, price gouging, arbitrage and forestalling.
There may not be any single word that describes such a concept. However, some words that might convey a similar meaning include "Profiteering", "Hoarding", or "Arbitrage".