GENERAL NEWS

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6130, 17 March 1898, Page 3

GENERAL NEWS

THE WHEAT CORNER. Young Joseph Leiter, the new king of the wheat market (writes the New York correspondent of the Argus on Jan. 30), can scarcely fail now to make his investments very profitable. At the end of December he owned nearly all the surplus wheat at Chicago and neighbouring points. To-day he has in his possession 9,000,000 bushels, carried by the Chicago storehouses, and 6,000,000 bushels more which is stored at various points within a few hundred miles of that city. No one else has any considerable quantity of wheat to sell for delivery at this time or during two or three weeks to come. Therefore the price has been rising rapidly, an advance of ten cents a bushel having been scored in the last two days. As the average price paid by Leiter was ninety-one cents a bushel, the sale of his holdings at present quotations would give him a profit of more than 2,000,000 dol. Believing, as he says, that the American surplus for export has been exhausted, he is selling his contracts for transatlantic shipment and holding his grain f d.i' tHe-, home market. But it is not true, that the country dan -spare rib more wheat to, be. soid abroad. For a novice, Leiter has been very successful, but a great deal can be accomplished in the wheat market by a young man who has brains, and is permitted to use part or the whole of his father's fortune of 30,000,000 dol.