A quarter of a million in a day!
That was Thomas W. Lawson's record for March 16, 1899.
The celebrated "Unthroned King of State Street" was on top of the Sugar market; that is the reason of it all.
Sugar was the big card of stock speculation yesterday.
Indeed, the stock had one of the wildest days in its history, and its high price—$170—reached amid great excitement—is the highest on record. The speculation was something tremendous, and it has been through the speculation that the people who have been under the impression that the markets were drifting into a dull and uninteresting condition have had a sudden awakening.
From the opening it quickly advanced to 149, receded a point or more, and shortly after noon started sharply upward. The demand for it came so rapidly that the tape could not keep up with it, and the excitement grew as the demand increased. The scenes on the floors of both the New York and local boards were most exciting. Blocks of 500 and 1,000 shares changed hands frequently, and at one time the quotation in the Boston market was fully four points behind that of the New York list. The small army of shorts scrambled to get covered up, and everybody was in a fever of wild excitement over the marvellous movement. Before it had culminated the price reached 170, or a gain of twenty-nine points over the opening—the most remarkable display of strength in so short a period of time that this remarkable stock has ever shown.
Broker Lawson did the buying, and while the excitement was running high he bought freely. He had taken 20,000 shares all told before the advance had fairly gotten under way at from 143-1/2 to 144. At 170 he gave an order to sell 20,000 shares at a limit of 155, and obtained an average of over 160, thereby netting an estimated snug profit of $250,000 or more within two hours. Asked as to whether the strength in Sugar meant a settlement of the Sugar war, Mr. Lawson smiled and said: "There has never been any Sugar war."
The conservative people on the Street are disposed to regard the whole movement as a piece of clever manipulation.
[From the Boston Herald, March 16, 1899]