Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-04-21

for Its greedineSs In trying to make five
accumuIated. This pool got the tip straight
from the inside to buy Union Pacific before
the big increase in the dividend in August
and loaded up with a wad of the stock.
Its paper profits. when the stock sold at
<l9o. were upward Of $6.O00.0OO But the
members OF the pool were greedy for
few hundred thousand dollars more and
got stubborn and held on all the way down
until 1t was forced to liquidate around the
bottom prices at an enormous loss. The
insiders who had been good enough to put
the young men on to the good thing for
got to tell them when to let go. This
lapse Of memory Is very common in stock
market operations.
When the insiders in a stock spread tips
around to buy 1t they don't do 1t from any
philanthropic motives. They glad, of
course, to have Their friends make little
spending money out OF their stock, but
their own welfare is their first lookout.
They put their friends into their stock be-
cause they know that they will all adver-
tise II and help make market for it.
The wise manipulation of stocks knows the
value of making money fOx people in a
stock in which he Is running bull cam
paign. The higher a stock goes the more
enthusiastic do the SPECTATORS in It be-
come over its merits. The insiders, IL
they are wise to the game. begin taking
their profits long before the stock reaches
its top. After having accumulated their
line at low prices they take their profits
later on the way up. The public. il 1t Is
wisely handled. goes on buying and In the
end the insiders get rid of all their stock
and the public is landed with it.
Although little has been heard recently
about the consolidation of Tennessee Coal
and Iron and the Republic Iron and steel
Company. it may be said that substantial
progress is making toward the fusion of
the two corporations. Interests which had
been holding out against the deal are under
stood to have been placated and those who
have been at work on 1t for year more
express confidence that official announce
ment of the success of the plan can soon be
made They are anxious to avoid prema-
ture statements, however, as there have
been so many slip-ups In the past. They do
not want to make themselves a laughing
stock by continual announcements that all
differences have been fixed up. The next
time anything from the inside is published
afflrnativeiy it will be finality Objections
heretofore have come from the holders of
Republic stocks, who seem to feel that they
were getting a shade the worst of it under
the proposed arrangement
~.
Underwriters of mining stock pools are
not so enthusiastic just now over the pos
time in the street when it was considered
a cnch to be a member of bond under
writing syndicate. One syndicate after an
other turned over a fat profit without u.s.
ing any real capital to speak Of. But then
the market became giutted with bonds. and
syndicates were landed with their own
wares. Since then the street hasn't been
SO enthusiastic over bond underwriting syn
dicates. Early in the winter, when every
body was bringing out mining company,
mining stock underwriting syndicates be-
came the fad. Stock was underwritten at,
say, 81 share. was brought out at S. and
Immediately landed on the public all the
way up to $40 Brokers found this the
discovered in a long time. But the market
has been glutted with mining stocks and
many of the beiated syndicates find that
they cannot sell their own wares at the
underwriting prices.
Sometimes the insiders themselves get
as enthusiastic as their followers, as their
stock advances to new high prices. 1t
sometimes happens that the insiders ac-
tually get landed with their own stock.
This happened not so long ago in one
of the leading industrial securities. The
pool conducted a highly successful cam
paign In the stock, carrying 1t on from one
new high level to another and getting
more bullish on the stock with each sue
cessive advance. When the followers OF
the pool began to convert some Of their
paper profits into cash at the high prices
tho pool neglected to do SO, and then a big
break in the market came and the pool
was landed with q mass of its own stock.