We give below a few definitions of some of the more important words
used in the financial operations of Wall Street.
The Street itself has been the center of finance of this country for
nearly a hundred years, when the New York Stock Exchange was
established.
Here are offices of the greatest and wealthiest financiers the world
has ever known.
It is the greatest speculative center in this or any other country.
Here are found the men who create and handle railroads and the largest
industrial enterprises in the world.
In the Exchange millions of dollars' worth of stocks and bonds are
bought and sold every day.
Here are found hundreds of banks, trust and safe deposit institutions,
private bankers and capitalists, a money center which controls
seven-tenths of all the money in America.
In Wall Street you may buy or sell one or more shares of the stock of
any great railway or industrial company in the country.
Here is where all important enterprises are financed, and where the
public sends enormous sums of money to be invested for speculative
gain.
INVESTORS.
Those who come into the market and purchase securities for the purpose
of holding them as safe investments for their money, securing an
interest or dividend income thereon.
SPECULATORS.
Those who buy and sell upon margins for quick profits. They are
non-producers. They are simply gamblers, with the odds badly against
them. They sometimes prosper for a while, but lose their money in the
end.
INVESTMENT SPECULATORS.
Those who buy stocks judiciously, selecting choice securities whose
value is well known, buying when values are depressed, and selling when
sufficient advance occurs to give them a good profit. This they repeat
over and over again, and make money while the speculator on margin
loses. It is to this class that we appeal.
"A BULL."
A speculator who buys expecting to sell at a higher price. He is called
"long" on the market, meaning that he is buying with the expectation
that the market will go up and that he will sell out at a profit. His
belief not only is that prices are going higher, but he uses all his
influence in every possible effort to make them go higher.
"A BEAR."
A speculator who sells in the expectation of a decline. He is called
"short" of the market. He is selling what he has not got. He does this
in the expectation that prices are going down, and that he will be able
to buy the stocks at a lower price than that he has to pay for them,
and by delivering them at the price at which he sold to make his
profit. He puts up his margin and takes his risk. As an illustration of
what a "bear" is and does, suppose you believed that in a week's time
corn would go down in price; therefore, you sell and promise to deliver
so many bushels of corn at a certain price. If corn does go down, and
you can buy it at a lower price than that at which you sold, you are a
winner. If it disappoints you, and it goes up, you have to deliver it
anyway, and are out of pocket.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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