BRYAN COUNTY HISTORY: Help Yourself
Bryan County Genealogy Library
The grocery shopper of 2021 can expect the convenience of complete customer service: visit a website, shop for a variety of supplies, pay by credit card, and pick them up at curbside or have them delivered to the door. Ironically, the grocery shoppers of Indian Territory could expect a comparable level of service. They wrote out a list, delivered it to the store owner or clerk, waited while their supplies were chosen and wrapped, and then had the option of carrying them home in their wagon or having them delivered. Charges were written in a ledger and paid at the end of the month. A few years later the telephone made orders even more convenient.
The recent volatility in the price of GameStop and other stocks has been characterized rightly or wrongly as an unprecedented populist revolt by small-time traders against big hedge funds. While the offensive by users of the Reddit forum WallStreetBets against the short positions of institutional traders made for a dramatic two weeks on Wall Street, the episode wasn’t the first, or even the most remarkable, David vs. Goliath battle to animate the stock exchange. Nearly a century before, in 1923, a Southern businessman named Clarence Saunders tried to orchestrate an epic short squeeze on well-pedigreed traders all by himself. The gambit was both spectacular and disastrous, ending when the New York Stock Exchange sided with short sellers and changed the rules on him. In a short span, Saunders who would come to be known as “the boob from Tennessee” went from being feted as the conqueror of Wall Street to being bankrupt and unemployed.
(Repeats Tuesday story, no changes to text)
LONDON, Feb 3 (Reuters) - Last week’s frenzied battle over GameStop that pitted retail traders against Wall Street hedge funds joins a long line of tussles between investors going ‘long’ by buying shares and those seeking to turn a profit from ‘short’ trades.
Short trading involves borrowing shares and selling them on with the aim of buying them back later more cheaply and pocketing the difference. But it can be a risky bet.
Markets can go the wrong way and losses can be crushing if a stock climbs, forcing short-sellers to scramble to buy back shares so they can close their positions.
Updated / Wednesday, 3 Feb 2021
14:07
Last week s frenzied battle over GameStop pitted retail traders against Wall Street hedge funds
Last week s frenzied battle over GameStop that pitted retail traders against Wall Street hedge funds joins a long line of tussles between investors going long by buying shares and those seeking to turn a profit from short trades.
Short trading involves borrowing shares and selling them on with the aim of buying them back later more cheaply and pocketing the difference. But it can be a risky bet.
Markets can go the wrong way and losses can be crushing if a stock climbs, forcing short-sellers to scramble to buy back shares so they can close their positions.
The long and short of it: GameStop and other market squeezes theglobeandmail.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from theglobeandmail.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.