Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 April 1894 — FLURRY IN WHEAT. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

FLURRY IN WHEAT.

v ""’"W 1 PRICE GOES UP THREE CENTS A * BUSHEL INCHICAGO. Startling Crop Damage Talk and • Harder Freese Coming Create a Panic Among Buyers—Enormous Business and Great Bxeitement oa the Floor. Mad Scramble in the Pit. There was a waking up of the wheat trade the first hour Wednesday morning, says a dispatch from Chicago. On fear of still colder weather over the wheat belt the May price started ic up, gained fc in the first half hour, when all offerings ceased, and shorts got excited and bid prices up 2c furs ther in a few minutes. May from 58} @sß*e Tuesday night went to 61}c. Corn for May was up fc to 37t@37i0 the first hour. Oats gained ic to 31io May. Pork gained 10c in sympathy. Receipts for the day were very light at 24 cars wheat, 96 corn, 118 oats. Hogs were posted at 29,000. After months of weary waiting on the bull side of wheat, and after decline and depression such as never before recorded in the trade, there was a great upheaval in the market and a jump of 3c in the speculative price in less than an hour. The great pit, which has bee'n afflicted by that “tired feeling’’ for weeks and months, at onoe became the scene of great excitement. May wheat, which closed 58}(a5840 Tuesday night, started at 58ic, and in

a few minutes moved up to 590, with no indication of the panic which followed. The Signal Service Agent put the touches on the weather map. The chart showed milder weather only in certain localities, while the Northwest, lowa, Kansas, and other great States of the wheat belt had freezing weather. This was not all. The prediction was fora more severe freeze than on Monday over the whole wheat belt. This was alarming. At the same hour every house on the floor with country connections had dispatches telling of wheat already killed by the cold wave of Sunday and Monday. Tuesday the trade was bearish on the theory that wheat was not injured. Cairo and St. Louis parties after sending out agents reported half the crop in Southern Illinois, Tennessee and Kentucky killed beyond doubt, as it was jointed by the previous warm weather. All this came on the trade, which was heavily short. It was not the shortage of one big house, nor a dozen big houses. The scalpers were short. The tailers after the bear plungers were short. Every big commission house had from 10 to 100 customers short, some small, some large lines. They all wanted wheat. In the face of the weather map and the alarming crop dispatches, there was no one to sell it to them. There was nothing left but to bid for it. This started the panio among shorts. Then came another element of danger, the stop-loss orders. Customers with ten, twenty or fifty thousand wheat short around 583 c or 582 c had protecting orders abound 593 c or 60c. When stop ciders were reached commission men were wild. Once the market got by the stop-order point the loss was on the house. Big houses had all their brokers buying like fury. It was a wild scene and a great, bounding, bull market, with losses for shorts, big and little, right and left. The May price started 58ic, went to 59c gradually, went to 60c with shorts climbing over each other wheat soli ic lower, went from 60c to 61c with commission houses buying on a tremendous scale to save their customers and themselves, and the panic which was on carried the price to 61* c, or 3c over the close on Tuesday. July sold 601 c and up to 63c. Kara ridge brokers sold wheat on the big advance, and the May price went back to 603 c. On a second flurry before midday the May sold 6Hc and , was stopped by enormous selling by ■ Baldwin-Earnum and others. The market became steady at 603 c, 23 c over Tuesday night. The light cars, 166 Minneapolis and Duluth, against 360 a year ago, added to the force of the buying. Millions of Bushels Handled* Hundreds of brokers and speculators were wildly clawing the air and screaming for wheat, says the dispatch. They bid the market up on themselves furiously, and in less than five minutes the price was 61*, and July was 63. From 591 to 61 hardly a trade was made. Everybody wanted to buy wheat, and nobody had any for sale. The tountains of supply were suddenly exhausted. The bears were thrown into a hopeless panio by their inability to get wheat. Nothing so frightens a speculator as to discover that he can I meither buy nor sell, and when thoroughly panic-stricken nobody can skip fractions in his bids like a trapped short seller. At such periods he wants the property and price cuts no figure. >

CHICAGO BOARD OT TRADE.