Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1893-05-25
STOCK GAMBLING.
The "Bulls,'' the Bears the Amateurs
and Brokers and Their Methods.


and Brokers and Their Methods.
do not know how it is in London, Paris
and the other great cities of Europe, but :
can hardly believe that the mum Der of per-
sons in any of them who speculate in stocks
bears so large proportion to the entire
population as it 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 if not profit Indeed, if tho
stock brokers had for customers only in
vestors and professional spectators, half
of them and probably more could not make
a living. The commissions and 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 it is by recruits from other cities of
the Union, all OF them being borrowers Of
money, renders Il breakdown il the market
exceedingly easy.
As is well known, the amateur stock OPP
orator expects to make his gains by selling
at higher price than he buys at. This is
the natural method of conducting business
in other things. and the application of it to
stock transactions follows as matter of
course The many legends current OF pcO-
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 often
bears as bUlls-that is, they sell at going
prices stocks which they do not hold in tie
expectation of buying them back cheaper.
As a rule however, the bulls among the
professionals also outnumbcr 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 az
yregate of these borrowings runs up into
the millions and tens of millions. What
The result Ia 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 ont the customers stocks,
and when a hundred brokers are doing TIE
same thing at once the wonder is not that
prices go down. but that they do not 20
down more.
1t is evident that the stool. market, being
thus, as a rule, supported by purchasers
with borrowed money, i always liable Il
collapse whenever borrowing becomes diff
cult 1t Is Il pyramid balanced or IL apex,
ready to topple over with a slight push il
one direction or another. y hen this push
is strong, OWNS, to the sudden attacks upon
n few vulnerable stocks and the contract
ing Of loans resulting from the appreacn-
sions Of lenders the ovCr;uTn OF the NyT;;-
mid j. inevitable, and the number Of those
who are caught and crushed UnCvrIc is vc~E
large. Still this Is d peril 10 which tie
victims voluntarily expose themselves, and
they have no right to Try to cast thr
blame of their misfortune upon others. K
was Old Andrew Jackson, l think, who 1T
tered the aphCrisn That men who trade
upon borrowed money ought to fail, OF. -
a more modern authority once pas il, son
ny, don't buy what yoI can't pay for and
don't sell what you haven't EOt."-A-&t
thew Marshall in New York sun.