Market Making In The Old Time Bucket Shops
Of course I had my ups and downs, but was a winner on balance. However, the Cosmopolitan people were not satisfied with the awful handicap they had tacked on me, which should have been enough to beat anybody. They tried to double-cross me. They didn't get me. I escaped because of one of my hunches.
The Cosmopolitan, as I said, was my last resort. It was the richest bucket shop in New England, and as a rule they put no limit on a trade. I think I was the heaviest individual trader they had that is, of the steady, every-day customers. They had a fine office and the largest and completest quotation board I have ever seen anywhere.
It ran along the whole length of the big room and every imaginable thing was quoted. I mean stocks dealt in on the New York and Boston Stock Exchanges, cotton, wheat, provisions, metals everything that was bought and sold in New York, Chicago, Boston and Liverpool.
You know how they traded in bucket shops. You gave your money to a clerk and told him what you wished to buy or sell. He looked at the tape or the quotation board and took the price from there the last one, of course.
In the instance I speak of he sent thirty-five men to act as customers. They went to the main office and to the bigger branches. On a certain day at a fixed hour the agents all bought as much of a certain stock as the managers would let them.
Just then Dave Wyman by the ticker, began: "Su-" and quick as a flash I slapped my tickets on the counter in front of the clerk and yelled, "Close Sugar!" before Dave had finished calling the price. So, of course, the house had to close my Sugar at the last quotation. What Dave called turned out to be 103 again.
In the humbler bucket shops, where people were allowed to trade in as little as five shares, the tickets were little slips different colors for buying and selling and at times, as for instance in boiling bull markets, the shops would be hard hit because all the customers were bulls and happened to be right. Then the bucket shop would deduct both buying and selling commissions and if you bought a stock at 20 the ticket would read 20-1/4. You thus had only 3/4 of a point's run for your money.
So I yelled at him: "Hey, Tom, what in hell are you waiting for? Mark the price on these tickets 103! Get a gait on!"
Everybody in the room heard me and began to look toward us and ask what was the trouble, for, you see, while the Cosmopolitan had never laid down, there was no telling, and a run on a bucket shop can start like a run on a bank. If one customer gets suspicious the others follow suit. So Tom looked sulky, but came over and marked my tickets "Closed at 103" and shoved the seven of them over toward me. He sure had a sour face.
Say, the distance from Tom's place to the cashier's cage "wasn't over eight feet. But I hadn't got to the cashier to get my money when Dave Wyman by the ticker yelled excitedly: "Gosh! Sugar, 108!" But it was too late; so I just laughed and called over to Tom, "It didn't work that time, did it, old boy? - 23223
The Cosmopolitan, as I said, was my last resort. It was the richest bucket shop in New England, and as a rule they put no limit on a trade. I think I was the heaviest individual trader they had that is, of the steady, every-day customers. They had a fine office and the largest and completest quotation board I have ever seen anywhere.
It ran along the whole length of the big room and every imaginable thing was quoted. I mean stocks dealt in on the New York and Boston Stock Exchanges, cotton, wheat, provisions, metals everything that was bought and sold in New York, Chicago, Boston and Liverpool.
You know how they traded in bucket shops. You gave your money to a clerk and told him what you wished to buy or sell. He looked at the tape or the quotation board and took the price from there the last one, of course.
In the instance I speak of he sent thirty-five men to act as customers. They went to the main office and to the bigger branches. On a certain day at a fixed hour the agents all bought as much of a certain stock as the managers would let them.
Just then Dave Wyman by the ticker, began: "Su-" and quick as a flash I slapped my tickets on the counter in front of the clerk and yelled, "Close Sugar!" before Dave had finished calling the price. So, of course, the house had to close my Sugar at the last quotation. What Dave called turned out to be 103 again.
In the humbler bucket shops, where people were allowed to trade in as little as five shares, the tickets were little slips different colors for buying and selling and at times, as for instance in boiling bull markets, the shops would be hard hit because all the customers were bulls and happened to be right. Then the bucket shop would deduct both buying and selling commissions and if you bought a stock at 20 the ticket would read 20-1/4. You thus had only 3/4 of a point's run for your money.
So I yelled at him: "Hey, Tom, what in hell are you waiting for? Mark the price on these tickets 103! Get a gait on!"
Everybody in the room heard me and began to look toward us and ask what was the trouble, for, you see, while the Cosmopolitan had never laid down, there was no telling, and a run on a bucket shop can start like a run on a bank. If one customer gets suspicious the others follow suit. So Tom looked sulky, but came over and marked my tickets "Closed at 103" and shoved the seven of them over toward me. He sure had a sour face.
Say, the distance from Tom's place to the cashier's cage "wasn't over eight feet. But I hadn't got to the cashier to get my money when Dave Wyman by the ticker yelled excitedly: "Gosh! Sugar, 108!" But it was too late; so I just laughed and called over to Tom, "It didn't work that time, did it, old boy? - 23223
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Author: Carlyle P. Paul is a an author that is passionate trader Learn Forex Expert Advisor Review. Take this step to learn Forex Trading now.
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