The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1896-03-07
Effect of the Downward Move
ment of Cotton.
MANY RUN ON HALF TIME
But Prospects for General Trade
Are Better.
THOUGH PRICES RANGE LOWER
Financial Market of the Country Has
Been Little Effected by Cuban Reso-
lutions and Baltimore and
Ohio Trouble.
Ohio Trouble


New York, March 6.-R. G. Dun &s
Co.'S Weekly Review Of Trade. which
issues tomorrow viii say:
The Cuban resolutions and the APP
pointment of receivers for the B. and
o., were events of sufficient impor-
tance 70 effect almost any genuine
market, especially for securities. 1t,
therefore, argues either remarkable
strength of conditions or an entire
want of life and genuineness in the
market that the prices Of the sixty
most active railroad stocks which aver
aged S49.74 per share Feb. /, have never
fallen since that date lower than
$49.36, nor risen above $50.S9 per share
The industries all report a slightly
lower range of prices except for iron
and steel products and it is noteworthy
that while combinations in structural
beams and wire and cut nails are adj
vancing prices, the quotation for Bes-
semer pig has fallen to $12.40 at Pitts
burg and Southern No 2, is offered
at S775 deliverable at Birmingham and
billets have sold at S17 at Pittsburg The
bar combination which raised prices
not long ago finds an increasing part
of the business absorbed by outside
works The demand for No. / class of
iron products is at this time brisk, but
large structural business is expected
in the spring and there is still much
hopefulness about railroad orders, as
earnings continue to improve.
Some further reductions have been
made in prices of cotton goods, al
though it does not appear that the con-
cessions have thus far been successful
in calling out new business. Reports
are frequent that many of the largest
mills are about to stop production for
a time, in order to give the market OPP
portunity to clear itself.
Speculation in bread stuffs has not
been particularly active, nor has the
change in prices been important.
Western receipts of wheat were q,
Gil 1888 bushels, against 1,S24,933 for
the same week last year, having been
in February 1865, ,440 bushels against
4,419,446 last year. There is still an
excess over the movement of a year
ago, though not so great as appeared in
February On the other hand Atlantic
exports again fall behind those of last
year, amounting for the week to l.
541 ,135 bushels, flour included, against
1,SS0,222 last year
With continuing large receipts, corn
remains substantially unchanged in
price. The cotton market has con-
tinued its downward movement; spots
have fallen three-sixteenths again and
the May options 20 points. The re-
ceipts continue as before, so large as
to render quite inadmissable the low
estimates Of the crop of 1895 and at
Al Nn for
plantina, this year go on at such a
scale that it is believed, by many con-
servatiye observers, that he crop with
fayoring weather may prove one OF the
largest on record.
Failures for the week have been 225
in the United Staes, against 234 last
year, and 68 in Canada, aginst 5s last
year.
BRADSTREETS REVIEW.
New York, March 6.-Bradstreet's
tomorrow will say:
General trade began the week rela-
lively less favorably but with the
change from high winds and extreme
cold, which checked trading, to milder
weather, increased purchases and
brighter prospects for business have
appeared.
Unfavorable conditions previously
reported are continued, but they are
less numerous than those point ng to
improvement. Conspicuous among
them is continued depression in the
wooden and cotton goods manufactur-
ing industries. Trade with manufac-
lures in those lines is very dull, some
cotton mills running on half time.
There are also reductions in quotations
for cotton print cloths, petroleum,
hides, and for wheat, Indian corn and
oats.
Mercantile collections are generally
unsatisfactory, notably at Chicago,
where there are more complaints than
for years past.