The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-12-30
Value of Boston's Mining Com
panies-ComparisonS With
Figures Of One Year Ago
OVER SPECULATION
ACTUAL BUSINESS
Total Value of Boston Companies
Today S175,oO0,oo0-Inte
esting Summary

One year ago Friday the Boston
Transcript published a table Showing
market values of Boston's mining COM
panies. OF the twenty-eight copper
stocks, only three are higher today,
Calumet & Hecla, Parrot and Wolver-
inc, which year ago today sold at
GAO, 1914 and So respectively. The av-
erage of the 2S was 661a at the end of
was 59A. AS Calumet & Hecla is SIS
higher today, the relative difference is
reduced. The other 27 stocks average
$40 lower today than a year ago.
OF course prices at the close of 1898
were not the highest by any means;
those were reached in the early months
of 1899, but so far as net appreciation
of the facts of a great industrial year
and remarkable year in the consump-
ton and price of copper is concerned,
the Boston copper shares actually av-
erage lower now than year ago-that
is, the high prices of the metal and the
great expansion in its use, with gen
eral business activity, have left copper
shares at a lower average than when
the year began. AS showing the re-
suits of over-speculation in contrast
with actual business, this exhibit is
valuable and suggestive of thoughtful
ness, the more so that the one copper
mining company whose shares are the
least susceptible to speculative effort
CALUMET & HECLA-
is selling substantially higher. Even
over-booming and over-exploiting and
combining and manipulating, with the
corollary of panic in copper shares
could not offset the very substantial
results of Calumet & Hecla's genuine
prosperity.
Some of the prices now compare
strikingly with those at the end of
1898. Montana is &c lower, Tamaraek
10, Quincy only 21a-all dividend pay
ers. But Butte is so, and Arcadian As
lower. Osceola is 161a under it's price of
year ago; Atlantic g. Isle Royale 16,
Old Dominion 1917, Centennial 15%-
Just one-half the price-Baltic 1115,
Franklin g. Mohawk G. Winona 1O1a,
Old Colony 10. In comparison with
prices before the 1899 boom fairly be-
gan copper shares today are radically
lower. This shows, not any fault with
the actual copper metal position or
prospects, but the result of the great
ver-speculation. Now comes the ques-
tAOils has IlOl Tic uIOlJ DeGH carried Tar
enough-too far, perhaps? We go to
extremes generally in market fluctua-
tons, and it fairly may be assumed
that the reaping of the whirlwind has
caused too much of shrinkage in the
better class of stocks, based on actual
dividend payments and presumable
future returns to stockholders The
question as to prices ought to rest once
more on actual conditions of the COP
= per market mia nf ha CT
which has been almost ignored of late,
while combine and speculation based
therelpon have swayed the market for
copper shares. Here is an
INTERESTING SUMMARY:
Average % Boston copper stocks:
Dec. ~, 1899. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. 59K
Dec. 20, 1898 ..................... 661s
Average net loss one year -. Ga
Omitting Calumet & Hecla, av-
age today .....................35
omitting Calumet & Hecla, av-
erage year ago ...........45
Average net loss .....s...1o
Total market value 90 com
panies today .............. $16S, 0S7, $50
Total market value % COM
panies year ago ...... POI, 624. ATS
One years net shrinkage .sSS, 5S7. OPS
Omitting Calumet & Hecla,
shrinkage Observation-Disclosures. Al ,037, OPS
1899 1898
Price of copper Dec. 90, Dec. 20
Lake, NY, per NJ. 1871 @16Nc 13@13Ac
STANDARD, London, per ton.
spot ........ .......s7O e5. IS Cd
The above does not include Utah
United States, the oil shares, Cochiti
and Bingham (both of the last two are
higher than year ago. quicksilver
stocks. MERGED (Which also are higher
or other mining shares. The grand to-
tai market value of Boston's mining
companies year ago was all of 1920, :
100000; today it is not much over S175.-
100000 We MAJ call the net total
shrinkage $45000,000, comparing the
end of 1899 with the end of 1898. AS
the total shrinkage from the highest
prices of 1899 figures close up to 5000
000,000-that is, the shrinkage from
highest to recent lowest, an idea is had
OF the enormous extent of Bostons
copper boom of 1899 and of the tre-
mendous fall At the beginning of 1898
the estimated total market value of
Boston's mining enterprises of all kinds
was $110, 1000, 000 at the end of 1898 it
was twice that. or 1920, 000, 900; the boom
carried the total early in 1899 up to
$375,000,000 in round numbers, and
there was a shrinkage of nearly 5000. =
100000 from that. Since the crisis there
has been some measure of recovery
but not enough substantially to alter
the computation.