The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1903-01-04
WALL STREET Nsws LETTER.
To the Ardmoreite
BY W. G. Nicholas.

New York, Jan. g. flnanciai anu
speculative practices are always
changing. as everything changes, but
within the past four or re years the
stock market has presen. "a 80 many
new and strange features hat some
ordinarily shrewd obsei ysrs have
found their expert calculations to go
wrong without quite knowing why.
Wall street has made a great mistake
in Understanding the Importance Of
the western speculative account. both
in the bull market and in the decline
that began in September and contin-
ued almost to the end OF the year. BY
sharp and sorry experience this error
OF Judgment has been corrected and
II is pretty safe TO say that never
again will Wall street underestimate
the West. Il is more likely 20 oyeres-
innate II the next time. The stock
market community Is just now con
cerned about the public--whcther It
can be Induced to come into another
bull market, whether II Il would come
in its resources are sufficiently large
to make a bull market pay Wall street.
whether II is quite as manageable pub
lie as II used to be. and so on. In all
this mental speculation about the pub
lie Il is presumed that the public is
far from being the case. True. the
public has been squeezed out of n
great many speculative stocks and bad
ly hurt; true, too. that commission
houses everywhere are practically
bare of outside. or non-professional ac-
counts, but this is no longer an infalli-
Bile sign that the public is "out" In
the first place, the public has taken up
and paid for more stocks during the
past three years than in perhaps. thir.
ty preceding years. II has these stocks
now in its strong boxes and the
amount OF securities held in that man
ner is larger than ever before in the
history Of the country Thus the pub
lie is actually long Of stocks to an
extent never before known.
There is stil an abundance of stocks
to go around The great bulk Of the
floating securities has gravltated again
10 Wall street. as always happens in
a bear market, although it certainly IS
true that commission houses. as a rule.
are carrying smaller lines of stocks
than they have carried at any
previous time in nearly five Yeas A
condition OF things. such as this. has
never yet failed to precede bull mar
ket But there Is never any telling
what the public win do It's specula.
tive moods are sometimes freaky. re-
naming Indifferent to Wall streets
most tempting advances; then again
70 has been known to run away with
the market when IL wasn't wanted at
all. Once when Jay Gould was manip-
ulating Erie he wanted to break the
price Of the stock. He directed his
chief broker TO sell 10000 shares Erie
advanced point or so under the sell
ing "sell them 10000 shares" said
Gould to his broker. and Erie adyanc-
ed another point or so. Give them
10000 shares more" said Gould. and
Erie still went up. 1T seems TO me"
said Gould. when his broker came a
third time for orders. that the public
is mighty fond of Erie" He then
changed his tactics and began TO buy
back the stock he had sold, intending
to bull II as high as the public would
but 1t, but the public suddenly deyol-
oped perverse indifference and re-
fused to buy any more Erie.
Since Frank A. Vanderlip. vice presi-
dent of the National City bank, dellv-
cred his famous bear speech to an au-
dience OF Carolina bankers a number
OF critics have critically challenged
his arguments In print, evidently for
the purpose of getting reply out of
him, but he has stubbornly refused to
1 NeAh baNhf ~ a AlANhu VINO dhktu MN
why he did not anGwer his critics he
said II have shot my bolt and I'm
done for that | think the worst thing
p young man can do in this business
p 20 talk too much" Mr.. Vanderlip
! apparently is sincere enough. but Wall
treet skeptics interpret his silence
another way. Few people in the
dnanclal world ordinarily people. that
is, doub, that the Vanderlip speech
was insp.red by STANDARD oil interests
who, at that time. were bearish on the
market air Vanderlip's friends in.
sis, that IL WASH nut the skeptics
retort that they cannot he expected to
believe that yiee-pre i1ent OF the
Standard OH party's bank would 20
OF and deliver a speech which he knew
would affect stock values considerably