Idaho semi-weekly world. [volume] (Idaho City, Idaho Territory) 1875-1908, 1893-09-29
STOCK GAMBLING.


The "Bulls," tho ''Bears," the Amateurs
and Brokers and Their Methods.
do not know how It Is in Isondon. Paris
and the other great cities OF Europe, but /
can hardly believe that the number Of per
sons In any Of them sTnc a,,se.ias. socks
bears 50 large a proportion to tue entire
population as 1t does here in New York.
Men, and women, too, Of all trades and oc-
equations and Of every degree Of pecuniary
ability habitually engage in operations on
our Stock Exchange and find in them
amusement II not profit Indeed, IL the
stock brokers had for customers only In
yestors and professional spectators, half
Of them and probably more could not make
, 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 maeni-
tude Of this miscellaneous crowd, augment
ed as 1t is by recruits from other cities Of
the Union, all Of them being borrowers Of
money, renders breakdown in the market
exceedingly easy.
As Is well known, the amateur stock op-
orator expects to make his gains by selling
at higher price than he buys at. This IL
the natural method OF conducting business
stock transactions follows as a matter Of
course. The many legends current Of peo-
pie who have acquired fortunes by purchas-
ing apparently worthless stocks at nominal
prices and subsequently selling them at an
enormous advance also helps to confirm
amateurs In this view Of the proper course
to be taken, and therefore most Of them are
what are called bulls" Professional stock
gamblers, on the contrary, are as often
bears" as bulls-that is, they sell at going
prices stocks which they do not hold in the
expectation Of buying them back cheaper.
As rule, however, the BULLS among the
professionals also outnumber the bears
and are said in the long run to be more sue
cessful.
Amateur stock gamblers, besides being
for the most part bulls, have rarely enough
ready cash Of their own to pay for what they
desire to buy, and hence what cash they
have they put up as margins" and rely On
their brokers to furnish the rest. This the
brokers do by borrowing from banks, trust
companies and private lenders, and the ag-
gregate of these borrowings runs up into
the millions and tens Of millions What
the result is when these loans are called in
we have seen. The customer cannot pro-
tect the broker, and so the broker to pro
tect himself sells out the customers stocks,
and when hundred brokers are doing the
same thing at once the wonder is not that
prices go down, but that they do not 60
down more.
1t is evident that the stock market. being
thus, as rule, supported by purchasers
with borrowed money, is always liable to
collapse whenever borrowing becomes diff
cult. 1t is pyramid balanced on its apex,
ready to topple over with slight push in
one direction or another When this push
is strong, owing to the sudden attacks upon
few vulnerable stocks and the contract
ing Of loans resulting from the apprehen-
sions of lenders. the overturn of the pyra-
mid is inevitable, and the number of those
who are caught and crushed under it is very
large. Still this is a peril to which the
victims voluntarily expose themselves, and
they have no right to try to cast the
blame of their misfortune upon others. 1t
was old Andrew Jackson, think, who ut
tered the sage aphorism that men who trade
upon borrowed money ought to fail, or, as
more modern authority once put it, ''Son
ny, don't buy what you can't pay for and
don't sell what you haven't got."-Mat-
thew Marshall in New York Sun.