WALL STREET: Shorts Shorted

The first market corner in several decades occurred on Wall Street and caught short sellers in a classic trap—without stock to deliver unless they paid fantastic prices. The corner was nothing like those when Morgan and Harriman battled for the Northern Pacific, gobbling up so much stock that shorts had to bid Northern Pacific from $170 to $1,000 in one day. But it was bad enough. In a single day, the stock of E. L .Bruce Co., a small Memphis hardwood flooring manufacturer, jumped $100 a share after the American Stock Exchange ruled that short sellers had to cover...

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