Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-12-03
THE INSIDE OF
WALL STREET
By EDWIN LEFEvRE.

It Is not altogether an usual occurrence
even in these days OF twentieth century
stock markets for one days transactions in
stocks to foot up 100000 shares and, not
withstanding this tremendous total, to have
acute observers of the trading declare I'M
hesitatingly and unanimously that it was
almost entirely a professional market"
1t means in so many words that half doz-
en- plungers and half hundred pikers did
so great a proportion of the whole that the
balance, done by customers of commission
houses, was insignificant.
This is not usual, that is, the total is not:
but apart from the magnitude of the oper-
ations of the steel-made millonaires and q
few others more recently created trust
magnates and reckless room traders, the
professionalism of the stock market is
not a rare phenomenon in Wall street
Time and again the pros and cons are SO
evenly balanced that the market as a whole
fails to develop a general tendency in
either direction, and then the professionals
who cannot sit still because that would
mean starvation indulge in a species of
financial cannibalism which consists of
'scalping' eighths and quarters out of each
other OF late it has looked as if for the
most part the little professionals have
taken mouthfuls out of the big ones, which
the latter scarcely missed.
Perhaps never before has the stock mar
ket shown such departures from the old
order of things in the past fortnight 1t
is not so long ago that precedent taught the
street to expect either a bull market or a
bear market, with occasional periods of in
decision, that is, of narrow fluctuations
which disappeared when the general
trend" became definite, much like the spec
ulative markets for staples. Lately we
have seen stock market not unlike Lon
dons. There, in the absence of some gen.
eral CONFUSION, such as an ominous cloud
in the political sky of Europe, or a sudden
danger of war with great power or the
passing away of such danger, spectators do
not look for general rises general de-
clines in stocks at all events not to any,
thing like the extent that New Workers. do
Some stocks have been weak at the very
same time that others have been strong be-
cause of special developments in the prop
critics themselves.
Thus the street has been treated to the
spectacle of stocks like Shelters, Tennessee
Coal and Iron and Brooklyn Rapid Transit
rising sensauonally, while other stocks in
the same general group, like United States
Steel and Metropolitan Street Railway have
been heavy. So accustomed Is the specu-
lative community to the general trend
theory that manipuiators and stock jobbers
have often put up a stock in order to
strengthen another or hammered one to
depress others. 1t used to be said, for in
stance, las gees St Paul, SO goes the rest
of the market But this is no longer true
at all events not to anything like the same
extent that ii was.
The fear of great crash resulting from
the plunging of reckless individuals in a
few stocks is another habit of the conserva-
tlves. They point to the fact that a trader
turned over" 100000 shares in one day as
an evidence of the dangerous artificiality''
of the market. The "artifciality. NAV be
there, but not necessarily the danger 1t
is dangerous for an outsider to buy 100 900
shares on small margin, but with the pro-
fessional in question, and his fellows it is
very different. More as a matter of curt
oslty than anything else, / went to the
trouble OF getting details from the plunging
room trader himself. He said he bought ali
told, in that one day, 81, Zoo shares of va
rious stocks, some high-prfced, others low,
the average being about SIS This repre-
scented a total value of 81, T35, 900. He said