350 THE GRAIN TRADE 



there stand out three so-called corners, namely, the Hutchinson 

 corner of 1888, the Leiter corner of 1898, and the Pattern corner 

 of 1909. The Hutchinson corner was a genuine corner, his buying 

 coinciding with actual market shortage; the Leiter corner was a 

 failure, bankrupting Leiter and leading to his permanent suspen- 

 sion from the Chicago Board of Trade; the Pattern corner was not 

 a corner, but an example of grain merchandising in accordance 

 with a correct market forecast. For when Mr. Pattern quit the 

 market, after his "May wheat deal," the prices continued to go 

 up and stay up till the new crop came in. 



Cornering the market, under the present rules olthe organized 

 exchanges, is now looked upon as a danger so slight as to be negli- 

 gible. There have been no intentional corners in recent years. 



Manipulation of the market means causing prices to rise or fall 

 by means of some deception usually in the form of spreading rumors 

 and false market reports. The rules of the organized exchanges 

 in recent years have been made extremely severe in this matter, 

 any member being subject to discipline^and expulsion for circulat- 

 ing any false reports. In the language of the trade, "The crop 

 killer has been killed off." 



Corners and manipulations were extremely common in the 

 grain trade before exchanges were organized, and for the first 

 years of the organized exchanges. But the total effect of the organ- 

 ized exchanges has been very greatly to curtail these evils in the 

 grain trade. Corners and manipulations are still familiar, how- 

 ever, in commodities not dealt in on the organized exchanges. 



A Wide Market. For the purpose of carrying on legitimate 

 hedging transactions a "wide" market is needed, that is, a market 

 with enough buyers and sellers in it to absorb instantly and without 

 shock large trades. In the language of the trade, it is a market 

 "easy to get in and out of." To make a market wide enough for 

 hedging every day in the year some speculators are needed. They 

 buy till the regular consumptive buyers are ready to purchase 

 their contracts; or they sell short, till the holders of either cash 

 grain or long contracts are ready to sell to them, or till fresh 

 speculators step in and close the trade. A trader on the "long" 

 side of the market (a buyer) can close his trade in three ways: 

 wait till delivery month and receive the grain; wait till delivery 

 month and receive a "delivery notice" (i.e., a notice that the 

 grain is in store for him, and a warehouse receipt ready), which 

 notice he immediately passes on to some other trader in fulfillment 

 of a contract, this delivery notice passing on from hand to hand 



