him alive—is that the market priceof the stock will go down, enabling him to buy the thousandshares he owes at a bargain rate, pay off his debt, and pocketthe difference. What he risks is that the lender, for one 杭州养生按摩网 reasonor another, may demand that he deliver up his thousandborrowed shares at a moment when their market price is at ahigh. Then the grinding truth of the old Wall Street

jingle isborne in upon him: “He who sells what isn’t his’n must buy itback or go to prison.” And in the days when corners werepossible, 杭州按摩全套服务 the short seller’s sleep was further disturbed by thefact that he was operating behind blank walls; dealing only withagents, he never knew either the identity of the purchaser ofhis stock (a prospective cornerer?) or the identity of the ownerof the stock he had 杭州保健按摩技师 borrowed (the same prospective cornerer,attacking from the rear?).
Although it is sometimes condemned as being the tool of thespeculator, short selling is still sanctioned, in a severelyrestricted form, on all of the nation’s exchanges. In itsunfettered state, it was the 杭州桑拿按摩全套 standard gambit in the game ofCorner. The situation would be set up when a group of bearswould go on a well-organized spree of short selling, and wouldoften help their cause along by

spreading rumors that thecompany back of the stock in question was on its last legs.
This operation was called a bear 杭州桑拿按摩特服 raid. The bulls’ mostformidable—but, of course, riskiest—counter-move was to try fora corner. Only a stock that many traders were selling shortcould be cornered; a stock that was in the throes of a realbear raid was ideal. In the latter situation, the would-becornerer 杭州丝袜上门 would attempt to buy up the investment houses’
floating supply of the stock and enough of the privately heldshares to freeze out the bears; if the attempt succeeded, whenhe called for the short sellers to make good the stock they hadborrowed, they could buy it from no one 杭州洗浴中心陪浴服务 but him. And theywould have to buy it at any price he chose to ask, their onlyalternatives—at least theoretically—being to go into bankruptcy orto jail for failure to meet their obligations.
In the old days of titanic financial death struggles, when AdamSmith’s ghost still smiled on Wall Street, 杭州足疗店都有什么服务 corners were fairlycommon and were often extremely sanguinary, with hundredsof innocent bystanders, as well as the embattled principals,getting their financial heads lopped off. The most famouscornerer in history was that celebrated old pirate, CommodoreCornelius 杭州足浴店胸推 Vanderbilt, who engineered no less than threesuccessful corners during the eighteen-sixties. Probably hisclassic job was in the stock of the Harlem Railway. By dint ofsecretly buying up all its available shares while simultaneouslycirculating a series of untruthful rumors of imminent bankruptcyto lure the short sellers in, he achieved an airtight trap. Finally,with the air of a man doing them a favor by saving themfrom jail, he offered the cornered shorts at $179 a share thestock he had bought up at a small fraction of that figure. Themost generally disastrous corner 杭州spa推荐 was that of 1901 in the stockof Northern Pacific; to