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Show Mining and Financial A WEEK or two ago opportunity was knocking at the door of those who had the money to buy mining stock, but the recipients of her visits did not recognize her in the bedraggled and rather woebegone creature who rattled at the threshold. She may be there yet, but if so, her raps have grown so feeble that they are lost in the rumble of the ice-wagon. ice-wagon. The top feather on opportunity's oppor-tunity's bonnet pointed in the direction of Pioche. More specifically it indicated indi-cated Prince Consolidated. Those who took the trouble to go to the door found the eastern interests which lately took an option on the control of Prince, behind the wagon giving it a push. In plain United States, Prince was duo for a boost and got it from $1.50 to $1.70 In the short space of a week. Many a trader would give his false teeth to know whether the boosting, is over or has just commenced. com-menced. But why, it may be asked, Is a rise in price taken as evidence of alock manipulation? The Prince has grown into a big mine, io earning handsomely handsome-ly on its capitalization and is proving the existence of unsuspected values in its Assure veins. Isn't tuat reason enough for an advance of 20 cents m the very moderate price of the stock? It should be, but the fact is that earnings, earn-ings, production and reserves have very little to do with stock prices on the local exchange. There are other properties with the same recommendations recommen-dations as Prince that have not gono up twenty nor ten nor one cent and Prince itself presented all of its best features to the public for a long time before the stock boom set In. It was not a very serious undertaking under-taking to roll the Prince ball uphill. All one has to do to advance a stock issue in the market is to appear within the precincts of the exchange with a pocketfull of nails or other metallic substance and make a noise like money. You can see the deal-ers deal-ers around the boar ring elevate their ears and reaoh for their scratch pads to mark up their offerings fifty per cent or so. It is common talk among men familiar with stock speculation spec-ulation that the Utah stock market offers brilliant opportunities for cornering cor-nering operations. There la a considerable con-siderable element which hastens to go short on any stock that shows indications indi-cations of an advance and for years now these bears have had everything their own way all becuuse the bulls have lacked the money, or tho enterprise, enter-prise, or both, to meet the tactics of the ursine tribe. One of the principle princi-ple obstacle to "corners" has been the prevalence of margin trading. It works this way. The boosters begin to pick up a certain share and the price advances; the advance interests tho public and tho public buys, or thinks it is buying, on a margin, as a matter of fact most of trio stock ostensibly purchased on margin Is not i bought at out the broker collects the ten c vonty por cent and tells his client he 1b holding the stock as security. In this way the entire capitalization cap-italization of a company may be sold twice over without creating a corner, cor-ner, since eighty per cent of the alleged al-leged sales are fictitious. Tho great majority of margin traders never ao pay their stock outright so tho bucket brigade has in reserve all tho stock actually purchased to meet the demands de-mands of the bulls when they attempt to close their corner. To be a successful suc-cessful cornerer one needs enough capital to buy and pay for from fifty to eighty per cent o the stock involved. in-volved. Otherwise his barque is likely to bo swamped by the fictitious purchases pur-chases of the margin buyers who help to advance prices but do not assist as-sist in holding them when the bucket brigade is ready to cause a slump and harvest the margins. Tho cause of the bulls has been strengthened to some extent by recent re-cent decisions of tho courts that a margin buyer is entitled to the delivery de-livery of his stock the moment he tenders the full amount due upon it and that a broker has no legal right to let the stock go out of his possession posses-sion until it is forfeited through the failure of the buyer to furnish an adequate 'margin. The effect of tnis ruling, which has always been tho public's interpretation of tho law, is nullified to some extent by the fact that only a small percentage or those who buy on margins have the money or the inclination to take up the stock purchased. It is the attitude of the majority in this respect that reduces trading in mining stocks to the level of gambling and works inestimable injury to legitimate mining. |