Fluctuations in Wheat Futures

Excerpt: While this investigation did not reveal any concentrated action for the deliberate purpose of manipulating the market, most of the wide and erratic price fluctuations that occurred in wheat futures at Chicago during the early part of 1925 were largely artificial and were caused primarily, either directly or indirectly, by heavy trading on the part of a limited number of professional speculators. Some of the speculators, and especially those operating first on one side of the market and then on the other, were able to take advantage of the technical conditions of the market by forcing prices into stop-loss orders or to a point of exhausted margins. These large-scale buying and selling operations completely disrupted the market and resulted in abnormal fluctuations, which were felt in every other large grain market in the world.