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The markets were full of Maynards. On the New York Cotton Exchange, another big trader said candidly: "Sure, I'm a bear. I'd sell my grandmother. I could see this thing coming in December. That's when I wrote all my customers to get out."
Defy the Fiend. This week, the big question was how far the shakedown in prices would go. Everybody still thought the drop a good thing. But could the U.S. have too much of a good thing? There were few signs last week that the commodity scare was spreading. Consumers showed no desire yet to hold off for lower prices all around.
Merchants showed no haste to cut prices except for small reductions in food and a few other items (the big soap companies cut prices 5%). American Woolen Co. even raised its prices (8 to 10% on worsteds). Department store dollar sales had gone up 10% over the same 1947 period the week of the big break. Even with the slump in meat prices, cattlemen had started no rush of cattle to the markets. The steel industry went ahead with its $565 million expansion plans for 1948. Some companies stood to lose on inventories. But inventories in general were not out of line as long as production—and demand—stayed up. And most companies had already protected themselves by huge reserves against such losses.
There had been no panic. And even the traders who had sold short were well aware of one big if: everyone was assuming that this year's crops would be bumper ones. On the basis of present estimates, they should be. But it was a long time till harvest.
* Regulations barred anyone from trading more than 2,000,000 bushels in one day. In the 1880s, big traders like Benjamin Peter Hutchinson often unloaded as much as 10,000,000 bushels, breaking the market. At such times, traders sadly sang:
I see Old Hutch start for his club;
Goodbye, my money, goodbye.
He's given us all a terrible rub;
Goodbye, my money, goodbye.