Word: grained
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Chicago grain pits were nervous. Wheat and corn prices "had been slipping for two weeks (TIME, Feb. 9), and traders were afraid it meant trouble. On Tuesday last week the trouble came. It swept in on a wave of selling in corn...
...Friday morning, after another sharp dip, U.S. grain prices rallied. Some grain speculators thought the worst might be over. Richard Uhlmann, president of the Board of Trade, thought it was safe to speak some reassuring words for a CBS broadcast. As he finished speaking, an assistant rushed up and cried: "The rally's oyer! Corn fell 8? while you were talking...
Cause. The reasons for the break were obvious. The swift rise in grain prices in the last year had been caused chiefly by 1) huge Government buying for export, and 2) fears of a poor U.S. grain crop this year. Now the Government has almost completed its buying. Furthermore, 1948 crop prospects have turned out to be good, both here and abroad, and they are getting better all the time. Australia and Argentina last month shipped two and a half times as much wheat as in the same period a year before. France expects to double her 1947 crops. Russia...
...last week, the estimates on world grain available for export had been upped 4 to 5 million tons, enough to close the gap between supply and minimum, needs. So some U.S. farmers and grain dealers who had been hoarding grain for higher prices were frightened into selling...
Effect. The commodity break posed a big question. Was it the start of a healthy general shake-out of inflated prices, or the ominous warning of a recession? When grains broke in 1920 (see chart), other commodity prices sank with them and threw the whole economy into a temporary tailspin. Before last week's break, wholesale commodity prices (as measured by the Bureau of Labor Statistics) were within 3.5 points of their 1920 peak. The grain prices had gone far above their post World War I high. Though the break had come too fast for official tabulation to keep...