The New York herald., 1879-12-02
FINANCIAL AND COMMERCIAL.
An Active but Weak Market
for Stocks.
MONEY RULES AT 6.
More About the New York
Central Sale.
WALL STREET.

MONDAY. Dec. Id +. n
The best that can be said of to-day's market is
that it was by turns strong and weak. Operators
who hit of it's fluctuations and made money both
ways to be esteemed fortunate and deserving OF
9 chrome. To the less lucky the market was
nothing but chaos. Prices were better at one
time. worse at another and irretrevably mixed 1t
the end. Erie had the most to say in the matter.
aud as its price went up or went down so Followed
the rest of the list Opening at 80 the price rose 70
to 4Ox. and in final dealings fell of to 3s3s In the
asseyeration that Erie controlled tho market some
reservation must be made. for while It Influenced
the price OF railway stocks 1t scarcely touched the
coal carriers. These tended to weakness upon ther
own account The street has treated to the very
contradictory report that while several OF the larger
companies have marked up their schedule prices
by Is cents per ton the Pennsylvania Company has
marked theirs down by so cents per ton. Here is
pretty kettle Of ash spectators to taste at their
leisure As q matter of fact We have reason to be-
eve that the schedule prices Of coal are consdera
bly, above those obtained on actual sale. The de-
mand is GOOD and prices have improved; but whole
sale dealers find difficulty in obtaining full
supply at from so to rs cents per ton below pub
lshed prices. It is estimated that the anthracite
output from January to the 22d OF November
amounts to 2s.4s1.722 tons. For the same
time in 1873. 15.169.701 tons. increase
With this material increase in production and
the immaterial advance in market prices it has been
enigma a. to how the Reading Company could
afford to raise its miners wages to the extent Of ten
per The solution appears to be in the fact that
while coal il sold at cash its equivalent the en-
ployes of the company put of with promises to
pay in the shape OF due bills. having thirty days to
three months to run. during which period the COM
pany gets the credit Of an equivalent amount Of
cash in bank. Whether from these facts. or other
reasons, there was decided effort to depress the
coal shares to-day. Mr.. Keene popularity placed
at the head of this bear movement. and his bench.
were busily employed in talking down
the rest of the market WE'LL In addi-
ton there some suspicion Of an attempt
to tighten money. but the rates Of call loans
hardly supported it. there being an abundance of
accommodation at and per cent. Nevertheless
then, the bear influence in the street is growing
slowly. Congress, with its possibility OF financial
bills. that will tend to disturb prices (even il they
to nothingl and the crippled state OF the pub
lie likely to check speculation for rise for some
time to come. That the old boom will reappear in
all its pristine effulgency some time in the spring is
not to be doubted. Meantime the safest thing to be
done Is to watch and wait" The Philadelpha mar
ket opened heavy and lower. with free sales New
York account particularly of the coal stocks Read
ing opened at "a. touched 33N and rallied to 353s
under free demand. Lehigh was lower, but steady,
1T SIX to 37H; also Pennsylvania Railroad at 4sal
TO l9X Toward the close the best OF these figures
we're not sustained and the market closed q
sion. c. Evans Co. report the closing prices of
Reading at s4x s4k and Reading Railroad at 4sx a
l9x.
Total sales at the Board to-day 447. .275 shares
Followipo IN a svnopsis of the transactions:-