The evening herald. [volume] (Shenandoah, Pa.) 1891-1966, 1893-05-30
STOCK GAMBLING.


The Bulls" the "Iienrs." tho Amateurs
and Brokers and Their Methods.
do not know how &C. rs ln London, Paris
and the other great cities of Europe, but
can hardly believe that the number OF per
sons In any Of them who speculutoi iu stocks
bears so large proportion 90 the entire
population ns II does hers in New York
Men, and women, too, of all trades and oc-
cupations and Of every degree Of pecuninry
ability habtuully engage iu operations on
our Stock Exchange and find In them
amusement n not profit Indeed, IN the
stock brokers had for customers only iu-
vestOrs and professional speculaturs, half
Of them and probably more could NOT make
a living The commissions aud interest
paid them by merchants, lawyers doctors,
manufacturers and retired capitalists, NOT
TO mention women, furnish the greater
part Of their incomes. and the very magni.
tude of this miscellaneous crowd. augment
ed as il is by recruits from other cities of
the Union, all Of them being borrowers ~
money, renders breakdown in the market
exceedingly easy
As is well known, the amateur stock Op
orator expects TO make his gains hy selling
at a higher price shan he buys nt This b.
the natural method Of conducting business
IN other things and the application Of 10 TO
stock transactions follows az q matter OF
course. The many legends current of pco-
pie who have acquired fortunes by purchas
ing apparently worthless stocks 90 nominal
prices and subsequently selling them at an
enormous advance also helps 20 confirm
amateurs In this view Of the proper course
10 be taken, and therefore most Of thom are
what are called bulls Professional stock
gamblers, on the contrary, are as often
bears as bulls-that is, they sell go going
prices stocks which they do not hold in the
expectation of buying them back cheaper
As a rule, however, the bulls among the
professionals also outuumber the bears
aud are said IN the long run 20 be more sue
cessful.
Amateur stock gamblers. besides being
for the most part bulls, have rarely enough
ready cash OF their own 10 pay forwhat they
desire TO buy, and hence what cash they
have they put up as margins" and rely ou
their brokers TO furnish the rest This the
brokers do by borrowing from banks. trust
companies and private lenders and the ug
gregate Of these borrowings runs up into
the millions aud tens of millions Wiat
che result Is when those loans are called in
we have seen. The customer cannot pro.
tect the broker, and 20 the broker Co pro-
Lacl llul@tiI sells out lue customer STOCKS,
and when a hundred brokers are doing tho
same thing at once the wonder is not that
prices 90 down, but that they do not go
down more.
IL is evident that the stock market, being
thus, as a rule, supported hy purchasers
with borrowed money, Is always liable Co
collapse whenever borrowing becomes din
cult. 10 Is n pyramid balanced on snpeX,
ready to topple over with "a slight push in
one direction or another When this push
Is strong, owing To the sudden attacks upon
a few vulnerable stocks and the contract
ing Of loans resulting from the apprcheu-
sions Of Lenders, the overturn OF the pyra-
mid is inevitable, and the number of t.ose
who are caught and crushed underit i- very
large. Still this Is peril 90 which the
victims voluntarily expose themselves, and
they have no right TO try 90 cast the
blame Of their misfortune upon others lt
was old Andrew jackson, think. who mt
tered the sage Hphorism that men who trade
upon borrowed money ought 90 fail, OF. as
o more modern authority once put it, "-on
ny, don't buy what you can't pay Tor aud
don't sell what You haven't g0t"-Alat
thew Marshall in New York sun