MILLIONS IN MINUTES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18019, 18 February 1922, Page 2 (Supplement)

MILLIONS IN MINUTES.

AMERICAN STOCK GAMBLING.

HUGE GAINS AND LOSSES.

A romance of millions made in a mornitig is recalled by the sudden death recently of Mrs. George Jay Gould, formerly Edith Kingdon, the actress. Jay Gould, the wizard of Wall Street, who started lifo with nothing and died worth £18.000.000. turned over the control of all lii s vast interests to his son George and gave him a salary of a million dollars a year. The son justified his father's confidence by making four million dollars in a morning by a deal on Wall Street. Fortunes are often made—and lost—in a few hours by Transatlantic gamblers. During a boom on the New York Stock Exchange, inaugurated by the surprising and utterly unexpected dividends of the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific Rail•ways, many men made fortunes varying from £100,000 to £500.C00 in a single day's operations, and it was estimated ! that the profits resulting to those with " inside" knowledge amounted to £6,400,000.

But probably no Stock Exchange speculator even in New York has been as consistently lucky as Mr. James R. Keene, who has been dubbed " the king of the bears." In 1899 he cleared £300,000 by bis olever handling of Brooklyn Rapid

Transit stock, and six years earlier he made £800,000 out of National Cordage stock. The manipulation of American Sugar Refining stock yielded a profit of £400,000, American Tobacco stock yielded £600.000. and Northern Pacific stock a round £500.000. One of Mr. Keene's few speculative blunders was in 1900, when he lost £400,000' in connection with New ¥ork Third-avenue Railway stock.

liven larger amount* than these have often been won and lost by Stock Exchange speculation in America. " Com modore" Vanderbilt once netted £1,000,000 by a deal in Harlem Railway stock. On the other hand, a few years ago Messrs. Jacob Astor, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and John R. Hoadley lost £600,000 in a few hours of unlucky gambling; and Messrs. J. J. Astor, R. W. Goelet. and a few other millionaires of New York dropped £1.800.000 owing to a slump in Union Paoifics.

The possibilities of lucky speculation in cotton were illustrated a short time ago by Mr. J. L. Itiyennore, who a few years since was, to quote his own words, " a poor office boy employed hy a Boston broker." Mr.» Livermore's process of fortune making was simplicity itself. Profiting by the sensation caused by the rumours that he intended to effect a corner in July cotton, the astute yonng man (he was still in the twenties) quickly broke his own " corner" by selling cotton to alarmed speculators. Before the veterans, who were trying to ruin him, saw through his little game he had disposed of all bis options to them; and as the result of his clever tactics was able to add £100,000 to his capital.