WALL STREET BOOM.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 53, 4 March 1925, Page 9

WALL STREET BOOM.

VAST FORTUNES MADE. SAN" FRANCISCO, January 3. Coincident with the dramaticallystaged ushering of a designated period of prosperity following the election of President Coolidge there has come a slight pause at the opening of the New Year when some of the wild-eyed operators on the New York Exchange took the opportunity of reviewing their successful efforts to extract a few more million dollars from the boosted market. Of course, the great Wall Street boom is still in full swing , , and it has rolled up the greatest number of personal fortunes ever accumulated in so short a time in the history of the country, according to shrewd observers of America's financial centre.

It is hard to determine who the lucky ones are accurately, for in "Wall Street the man who talks biggest about his profits occasionally is the man who is blessed with very little of this world's spoils, while the man who is silent frequently is "rolling" in new-found wealth. Still the "street" is very shrewd at guessing, and one of its most widespread guesses is that few individuals have profited more amply than George B. Buchanan, the well-known specialist in corn products and one of the most active traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

The best factor about Buchanan, if the sages on the "street" are right, is that he did not try to grab all the profits in sight for himself. His own takings are rated well up in the millione —four or five is said to be a conservative figure —but many other persons Tode to opulence on his coat tails. "The street" agrees that fully 50 persons followed Buchanan's tips and profited in amounts ranging from 5000 dollars to 1,000,000 dollars.

i He will be leaving soon for Florida — America's winter playground —to obtain a few months' well-earned rest on the sunny sands of that pleasure Tosort, I while some of his colleagues m the speculative markets are facing the Arctic weather which lias ruled in New York around Yuletide.

Others who have earned their vacation expenses during the big boom include such men as William C. Durant, : the automobile manufacturer, and George Whelan, the tobacco king. Durant is credited with having cleaned up to some three million dollars in Cast Iron Pipe and other etocks, while Whelan also is said to have become richer by some millions as a result of liis "bullish" sentiments about condi- ! tions in the United States.

! The late Nathan Allen, of Wisconsin, is said to have been one of Buchanan's fifty followers who profited most handsomely. He was one of the organisers :of the Central Leather Company, and among his large holdings at his death 1 was a block of Corn Products, the ! favourite speculative medium of i Buchanan's activities.

) "While many fortunes of one to five I millions were made by individuals, first i place among the beneficiaries of the i upward surge of the market has gone !to the big banking syndicates. Gossip ' has it that the First National Bank interests, which have been in the forefront of the "bulls" in the United I States, have profited on a larger scale I than all the rest of Wall Street banking J institutions put together. The officials of several corporations, i among them those of Standard Oil and the Dupont interests, are reported to have profited handsomely by the opportunities which the election of a conservative' like President Coolidge offered.

Many individuals are greatly amused at the continued attitude of the millionaire class in constantly declaring in flowery language that America is in for a record period of prosperity, for much of this expected prosperity appears to be founded on fancy, or as some Americans designate it—on "genuine bull." Nobody is surprised that millionaire i magnates wildly declare from the housetops that the country has prosperity beyond measure. Incidentally, the British pound sterling has risen higher than since 1919.