Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1879-11-20
WALL STREET.

- 1870
= : - ~ = =
WALL STREET.
The Great Boom liz St0cHs-Hosu Etesp-
body Has Made Monev-Ne,c Operations
IN tho Ftssd-Prospeceso Of a Crash.
New York Special. Nov. I'LL
Last weeks transactions in Wall street
were simply enormous. The most exciting
days OF the war scarcely produced more ex-
element. On one day the total transactions
of the stock exchange were 100000 shares,
another $4,000, third 100000. The
mania for speculation has seized upon half
of the city, and, judging from the orders re-
celved from out of town, half the country
, mas joined in. Brokers are flooded with
business. Persons who have never before
thought of specializing have tumbled into
the great whirlpool, that has borne so many
down, and are sailing around the circle with
the others. Every body has neighbor or q
friend who has made cool thousand Or two
out OF trifie, and the temptations to 80 and
DO likewise is too great to-. be resisted. As
rule, too, every one has won instead of
lest. 1t is All upward market-has been for
two months. New dealers in stocks are
always bulls. The complications are fewer
on that side of Wall street transaction,
and, being more easily understood, men
buy instead of sell. Moreover il looks more
like speculation to have property rise on
your hands than to promise to deliver
hereafter, and then trust to luck for
depreciation of values. Hence almost all
OF the new ones who have tried hand in
the street having been on the bull side have
won, and success has turned their heads.
One successful transaction is not enough,
| they must try another--and so it comes to
pass that all who have been in the market
| this fall have kept at it until now the daily
aggregate Of sales amounts to nearly half
| million day, and sometimes more than
that number. In this passion for so many
causes of the general and sustained rise in
prices. They have come out so thick, with
cash in hand, as to swell the current all in
one direction. The first cause of the boom,
as every one knows, was the return of good
times and the demand for Western grain,
which fortunately was harvested in such
quantities as to make the supply equal to the
demand. The same causes set the rolling
mills of the country pouring sparks out of
long unused chimneys, and making a de-
mand for coal: hence rise in the coal road
values, which to all appearances hasn't
ehded yet; for SIS long as the companies con-
tinue to advance the price of coal, which
they are rapidly doing, SO long must the
price of coal road shares go up. ..,....
:. Brokers say they never saw the like. Men
who know nothing of values, nothing of
Wall street methods, nothing of tho mystic
ries of puts and calls, and straddles. walk
into brokers' Office, slap down thousand
dollars and say, II want to speculate
your Judgment for me.'' The broker takes
the money and explains as best he can the
situation. The Spectator buys Erie, Wa
bash, anything the broker recommends, and
then begins to watch the market. A broker
said on Saturday that in that week he had
taken So, 900 in commissions from persons
who had never speculated before, half of
whom asked him to buy where he thought
best. Few put in small sums like 800 or
5000, but the usual method is to put in 10
per cent. on hundred shares, or $1,000.
Some brokers will buy stock on as small q
margin as 8 per cent, but most of them take
from old customers whose financial oondi-
ton is we'll known and or 10 from new
operators. There are places where you may
buy or sell as few as five shares of stock. and
hors are to be found a great army of clerks,
messenger boys and janitors of Offices, who
are risking few dollars margin. In the
bucket shops, too, scores of young persons
gamble to the extent of. SIS worth at o time.
The brokers are amassing fortunes out of
| commissions at more rapid rate than since
| the close of the war. ... at:
The appearance of the general public as
purchasers has had tende1,oy to discomfort
the professional spectators. The street is
divided up into cliques, who in ordinary
| times live off each other. Here come sub
| stantial old fellows from the rural districts
with orders to buy, and hang on, no matter
| how the market goes. They have cooler
! heads than the professionals, and they pur-
chase with an object in view, and as rule
after careful deliberation. The professional
goes down town every day to make some
! sort of dicker. The merest rumor puts
him in panic. A whisper of Jay Gould
and James Keene having been seen together
| in Delmonico's 1unch-room is enough for
| him to form a conclusion that Job is being
put up on some stock, and off he goes and
dabbles in it. The non-professional hears
none of these things, and is not influenced
thereby. He is moved to buy or sell by a
! distinct set of CAUSES than those governing
| the others transactions, aud he is dis
turbing element to the professional. Time
and time again has it been said in the street
in the past two months, "Well, all this rise
| is artificial; things are as high as they can
| be; I'm going to sell everything
l have" And lime and time
again men accustomed to Wall
street have sold all they had, and three days
| afterwards have purchased the same stock at
an advance of 8 or per cent. and waited for
yet a further rise. One broker, who is rea-
sonably we'll known, held on to Northwest
common until it netted him profit of a
cool million dollars over all. Then he sold.
That very week he purchased it all once
moro and held it until it gave him an ad-
ditionai profit of half million more. Now
he holdsit for third time. Women have
dipped into the markets in great numbers.
None so reckless as she when once the fit
gets hold of her. Some of them have been
very successful, indeed. dIs.
Glow long is it going to last7" you hear
on every hand. More say that the crash is
near at hand than that there will be no
crash. Yet all continue to buy. The future
for the coal road stocks seems more promis-
ing than for the other roads, for the increas-
mo hOonn in iro,, colis for q (aruo cono orov,