STOCK EXCHANGE GAMBLE.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 16 January 1901, Page 2

STOCK EXCHANGE GAMBLE.

Our cablegrams still continue to furnish us with items in regard to the London Globe Finance C mpany and Lake View Consols, and ’tis evident that the gamble has been on a gigantic scale. The transactions have in point of fact been a hugh game of poker in which shares existent and non-existent instead of cards have furnished the articles for manipulation. In the case under consideration the Lake View Consols —a Westralian mine—have supplied the cards, and the “bulls” and “ bears ” the players. The Melbourne Age has been at considerable trouble to find the fu 1 particulars regarding the mine. From the columns of our contemporary ■we learn that although the value of Lake View Consols shares had ruled fairly steady for the past two months, vigorous onslaughts by ‘bears’ have boon frequent ; but the group of * bulls ’ held the controlling influence, and in every case 1 bear 1 operators lost. The turn of the ‘ bears ’ has now come, however. Just as they were successful in breaking down the market for Associated, Ivanhoo, and Hannon’s Brown Hill, their continuous selling has proved to much for Lake View Consols. The movements of the shares in this mine of late have been extraordinary. For instance, when the ore was being picked, and the monthly output was !-J0 ; 000o/., valued roughly at £120,000, the value of shares was £27 10s, Last month the output was less than 6,0300 z,, say £24,000, and less working expenses the margin of profit was small. Yet the shares, with barely one fifth of the former gold output stood in the market at almost half their former value. As far as Australians are concerned, losses are not extensive. They have done the right thing, and practically the bulk of the shares in Westralia are now in English and Continental hands. French operators have already been severely hit. In the cant of the Stock Exchange a “ bear ” is one ■who contracts to deliver, at a specified future time, stocks which he does not own; a “bull” is one who contracts to take them. Hence in the intervening time it is in the interest of the former to depress stocks, and of the latter to raise stocks. The stock is not as a rule delivered, and when the time for payment comes the losing party pays the difference between the price of the stock then and at the time when the contract was made. The transactions were a gamble of the wildest character, with the usual result—profit to one or two individuals ; ruin to many.