STOCK GAMBLING IN U.S.A.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 306, 27 December 1928, Page 4

STOCK GAMBLING IN U.S.A.

FRENZIED TRADING. t NEW TICKER * INVENTED. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SAN FRANCISCO, November 28. Because of the "Hoover market," which surpasses the wild uprush of stocks last spring, the human cogs in the exchange machine have been almost at exhaustion point on the New York Stock Exchange, where unparallelled spectacles have been witnessed with traders literally fixating for the possession of popular stocks.

Midnight oil has been burned in brokers' offices in New York as the overworked bookkeeping staffs have attempted to keep pace with a market which highspeed tickers have found difficulty in following within an hour of actual transactions.

The brokers on the floor, around whom eddy and swell the buying and selling currents, have been forced to take extended week-end vacations. Many of the older members have been forced to give up their seats to younger members of their firms better able to withstand the physical battering they must undergo.

Michael J. Median* former brokerage clerk, who was the whirlpool centre of the "bull" market in' Radio Corporation of America stock last spring, felt the strain so deeply that he went on a month's vacation. He is reputed to have added further millions of dollars to those be made last spring in the current b,ull market. Downstairs restaurants have been forced to put on extra help to cope with the enormous volume of meals ordered carried in the brokerage houses for employees too busy to go out lor them. In an effort to check the frenzied operations many commission houses have increased their margin requirements to 40 per cent or more, especially for stocks selling above 200 dollars a share. To date, however, this move seems to have had little effect and there have been few liquidations of weakened marginal accounts.

Many specialists on the floor have refused stop orders, that is, to accept a range within which they would be authorised to operate for their clients. They have complained that it is physically impossible for them to watch such orders in this kind of a rushing market. New high-speed printers, capable of three times the present volume by printing 1000 characters a minute, are being manufactured to record sales, but this service cannot possibly start operation for some time in earnest. Some brokers state that the new printers will be so rapid they will be unable to read and follow them and any advantage ip speed will be lost.

, In December sales volume tender 500 flfcares will be dropped from the ticker, ewspt on opening sales, but the exchange will keep the volume count and supply it to newspapers over the telegraph printers at regular intervals. The price on all sales, of course, will be carried. This is expected to speed up the ticker 10 per cent. It was during the middle of November that the ticker got behind to the extent of one hour and thirty-five mirTutes one day, when the sales totalled 5,670,600 shares.

The security markets are growing and will continue to grow. Public interest in the market is pot a mere outburst of temporary public enthusiasm* investment purchase of stocks having increased with speculative buying, and four million share days op the Stock Exchange of New York will ultimately copie to be considered inactive markets. This was the opinion of E. H. Simmons, the president of the New York Exchange, who ip an interview told of some of the new and measures that would be put in operation to facilitate the expanding service of the Stock Exchange public. "The new ticker has reached such a degree of perfection that within a year, or even Jew than that, it will be put into operation," Simmons declared. "The new instrument, as soon as installed, will handle a 7,000,000 phare market, efficiently and accurately, thus aiding very materially in keeping the public informed of prices of stocks."