The Sugar Exchange is a market place, where buyers and sellers of sugar
or their representatives meet to trade.
The Exchange provides a concentration point, where, under any market
conditions, sugar may be bought or sold _at a price_.
What that price is, is determined by how much sugar is for sale and how
many people want it. If the supply is large and buyers are few, the
price will be low. If sugar is scarce and buyers are numerous, the
price will be high. Or, to put it in another way, when there are more
sellers than buyers, the market declines; when more buyers than
sellers, it advances. If the supply and the number of buyers are
normally well balanced, the price will be determined largely by the
cost of production and transportation. If events or circumstances
operate to increase or curtail either the sugar supply or the number of
buyers, and such events or circumstances follow one after the other
alternately, the price will fluctuate.
These are the results of the operation of well-known economic laws.
In the case of all commodities which cannot be bought or sold at a
common market place (or exchange), price fluctuations are usually wide
and frequent, because no large group ever has common knowledge of
supply, demand and other factors that govern prices--purchases and
sales are made direct between individuals, and knowledge of the amount
asked or paid is restricted to a limited few.
Through the common market place provided by an exchange, on the other
hand, market conditions and prices become common knowledge almost
instantly over the entire country. This tends toward stabilization--a
fact which, alone, helps to eliminate risks, and enables merchants to
buy at lower prices than if forced to deal direct with one another.
Sellers do not have to take such long chances and can thus afford to
sell on a smaller margin of profit. Competition is stimulated and freed
from many of its complications and uncertainties to the advantage of
the seller, the buyer and the public.
It is now admitted that, had exchange trading in refined sugar existed
in 1920, a general use of the exchange by all branches of the trade
might have prevented, to a considerable extent, the abnormal advance in
sugar prices of that period, with the hardship and misfortune that
attended.
The fact that an exchange always provides a buyer and a seller, _at a
price_, tends toward keeping business fluid. Jobbers are able to
protect their future requirements. Producers are sure of a market for
their crops. Crop financing is made easier because bankers are more
willing to loan on crops sold in advance--an operation made possible by
an exchange.
Exchanges operate to take the gamble out of business. They help to put
and maintain business on a sound basis. That some people who have no
real interest in the commodity use the exchange speculatively does not
alter this fact.
In providing machinery by which speculative risks incident to a
jobber's business may be shifted from the jobber to those who make a
business of assuming such risks, exchanges help to stabilize his
business and to remove a large part of the destructive uncertainty with
which he would otherwise have to contend.
Exchanges are the creations of modern economic development, designed
and operated for the benefit of the commerce, industry and people of
the civilized world.
Therefore we welcome trading in refined sugar futures and the
opportunity to offer you the advantages that may be derived from a
conservative, intelligent use of its services.
The Exchange provides certain quality standards and other regulations
to safeguard your interests. But your real assurance of protection lies
in the _character_ and reliability of your broker. If your broker is
not strong financially you do not have back of your contract the
responsibility that you might otherwise have.
If you had a favorable contract with a broker who became insolvent, you
would have no means of forcing the fulfillment of the contract, and no
way of securing the profit which was due you. The thing to do, of
course, is to choose a broker who is so strong financially that you
incur no danger in this respect whatsoever.