Evening star., 1923-07-24
VI.
By IL. X. TREVOR.


The operations of we'll organized
gangs of planters" began to play
havoc with the bucket shops in 1916
and for a few years thereafter. The
planting" of u bucket shop is done
by a group which has a stock under
easy market control. In the sort of OPP
GRAFTON generally used in the planting
of orders on curb stock some stock Is
selected on which the distribution has
been very small. In order that the suS-
picions of the bucket shop may be al
layed. the stock. through sklllful manip-
plation by the gang preparing "a
plant" is generally given such an
appearance of activity as to indicate
that broad distribution Of 1t has
been effected.
An agent of the gang. acting under
cover. then quietly opens an account
as d customer in IL bucket shop. He
places a buying order for the stock
on margin. Te bucket shop does not
suspect that its new customer is
working under cover for people who
are handling the market in the stock,
and. following it's usual procedure
with customers accounts, it buckets"
the order.
Star Stock Upward.
When the gang handling the mar
ket in the stock has succeeded in
having enough orders "bucketed' by
Various bucket shops as result of
sending out number of It's dis
2uised agents for the opening of ac-
counts with such houses it starts the
stock upward.
When the stock has been put to
dizzy heights, the agents of the gang
who have bought the stock on mar
gin walk into the bucket shops and
pay for their stock in full-that is,
they pay the difference between the
margin which they had put up and
the price at which the stock was
selling at the time when their mar
gin buying orders We're placed On
putting up this additional money,
naturally. to the surprise and chagrin
Of the bucket shop, they call for de-
livery of the stock.
InaSniuch as the house has buck
eted the order, it must go into the
open market and buy the stock at
the high levels which the issue has
now reached. The house, should 1t
he unable to deliver the stocks. faces,
of course, a charge of bucketiiig with
an open-and shut case against itself.
Panic Among Bucketers.
When the skillful planters" first
began to play this game against the
curb bucketers on large scale in
the later stages of the war shares
boom there was a veritable panic in
the bucket shop ranks. The excited
buying of some stocks by the bucket
shops caused Wild advances, even be-
yond the heights to which those
stocks had already been manipulated.
In some cases the planting" of the
bucket shops was done by promoters
whose patience had been Sorely tried
by the raids made on some of their
stocks in the past by the bucketers
and the damage done to the mark is
for those stocks. Some of these pro-
moters in planting" the bucketers
simply figured on marking up the
planted" stock to a price COM
mensurate which they considered rep
resented reasonable market valu-
alton on the stock, and at those levels
the promoters, in addition to taking
profits from the buck citing fraternity.
also sought a distribution of the
shares to the public. In other cases
the planting was done by groups who
were as crooked. if not more crooked.
than the buCketers. These plant
ing" organizations did not hesitate
TO take advantage of the strong un-
derlying position in the market for a
planted stock by pushing the stock to
absurdly high prices and strained
efforts to unload the stock at the
greatly inflated figures to the public.
a Successful Plant.
One of the most spectacular mar
kets resulting from what was con-
sidered planting of bucket shops was
the remarkable advance In the pre-
ferred stock of the kathodian Bronze
Company That stock which for
some time had been selling around 50
per share, jumped within a period of
a few weeks to s6S per share in one
of the widest markets that was
witnessed in any stock even in those
exciting days. One bucket shop alone
was reported as losing $4,000 on that
move, and there were rumors in the
street that more than a dozen houses
had been successfully planted"
In the ensuing months. some indi-
viduals who had held minor positions
with interests that had been identi-
fed with the kathodian Bronze mar
ket, and various other individuals