The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1885-03-13
MINING STOCK PEcULrARIr1Es.

One of the inexplicable things In this
western world is the way in which
mining shares move up or down in the
market without any apparent cause for
change, and sometimes directly opposite
to the course that the price should take,
if it were controlled by what appears on
the surface. The Horn Silver strikingly
illustrates this peculiar feature of stock
dealing 1t is not SO long ago that
Horn Silver stock was in active demand
at something over SIT per share, and
without any apparent cause 1t dropped
to half that figure in the course of a few
weeks; then it went up again, but for a
couple of years the tendency has
been downward, the lowest point
touched being, we believe, $1.65
week or two ago. The steady and
persistent decline of the past three or
four months has been one of the mys-
terieus things. During all the time
the mine was being worked as
usual, and the output was even greater
than when the price of stock was
higher. So far as buyers and sellers
could know, the mine was in as good
condition as it had ever been, and there
was no reason TO expect a suspension of
dividends or even diminution in the
amount distributed quarterly as pro-
fits; indeed, the yield would indicate
larger rather than smaller dividends.
But the stock went down, in the face of
the excellent work being done at the
mine. Then came the cave, which was
a legitimate cause for decline, but after
a little furry, and before the
full extent of the damage can be known,
the shares show an upward tendency,
havingnoY reached $2.65 with every in
dlcation that they will go higher.
.SsDuring all these years of ups and
downs of the stock the mine has seem
ingly cut only a small figure in regulat-
ing the price OF shares. The bullion
output might be much or little and the
shares would go down or up in stubborn
I11db h11lCA IT.
gulate prices. When the indications
were that the mine would continue its
regular yield for an indefinite perio d
down went the shares, and now that
there is little prospect that any ore will
be raised for some time, the prices go
up.
The Horn Silver mine is
in better shape to-day, or
was before the recent cave, and to
all human appearance is richer than
when the shares were selling for SIT
each, and the property is certainly no
poorer in appearance or fact than it was
a few days ago, when the shares were
40 per cent. below what they bring in
the market to-day.
The moral of all this is that mining
shares are bought and sold not on their
real value, but blindly, prices being ar
rived at through a system of guesses by
all parties. The holder gaesses his
stock is worth certain sum, basing his
guess upon nothing in the mine or out
of it, and the buyer guesses the shares
are worth so much, the mine itself never
being taken into consideration.
As matter of fact the
Horn Silver is one of the
largest bodies of silver-lead ore
that has ever been opened; millions
have already been taken out, aud to all
appearances other millions will follow,
but these facts cut no figure on the
stock boards. where the prices will be
arranged without regard to anything
that exists down at Frisco.