Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1899-03-06
London Operators Are Growing
Suspicious
OF THE NEW YORK MARKET
Believe There Is a Scheme on Foot to
Catch Them Short on Our
Securities,

financial correspondent cables: The sus-
picion is entertained here that Wall street
is maneuyeringr to catch us short. This
may be merely our way of expressing dis
appointment that the January great rise
in prices has not already been a good
many bears lin. your railroad shares here
because a percentage Of operations al
ways sells on any advance, in the belief
that there will be a reaction. But l still
think that the bulls predominant, if not in
the market itself among the amateur OPP
orators outside, at least, the great bulk of
whom never take a philosophical view Of
ups and downs.s An experienced broker
remarked to me only yesterday:
What people begin to feel is that
If Americans continue to buy their own
railroad shares as they have been do
ing, there will soon be none at all left
on this side and they regard such a
state of affairs with some apprehension
partly because they feel sure that these
securities would never nave been taken
home If the buyers were not convinced
that they must all in time prove to be
valuable Investments"
This is the usual method of reasoning
and means that in a sort of a friendly
envy we shall try to buy back and keep
a few of these prospective investment
stocks. We v been bothered, though,
with several worries of the nightmare en-
gendering care They are partly the
consequence Of our great imperial posi-
ton. Not a day passes but some scare
mOnger gets to the market from some
where. This week it has been China and
Muscat, principally whence various
alarms have sprung up regarding our re-
lationship with Russia and France. Prices
have, therefore,, been disposed to droop
and in no department nav the large sup
porting houses done anything to sustain
them. The consequence is that the specu-
lative position wears an overloaded ap-
p%earance in places, as if many plungers
We're oppressed by the mass of the paper
they bought madly a month ago..
All this would disappear in five min
utes if you would only give us some
encouragement by purchasing more
freely and displaying better bank state
ments.. 1t is too bad that your assoc
ciated banks should be rapidly dimin-
ishing their surplus reserves just when
we calculated on seeing them we'll
maintained, and worse still, that the
treasury deficits should be dangled like
deaths heads before our eyes by con-
gress.h What much increases the aggra-
walton is the continued precariousness
of our own credit position. We, too,
have a bank which grows weaker in
stead of stronger, and a government
H OuSN ldIldllIS No III iuItC "
deficit. The prospect is, therefore, de-
cidedly not pleasant. No wonder the
markets are left to the small buyer
who still comes in thousands every
day of the week and purchases his five
or ten shares, principally kaffir Or
Rhodesian mines, or home industrials
in the hope Of making a pound or two
on a rise. Ell may, if he holds on, but
market conditions are by no means as
assured as / would like to see them.
any of the gold which is almost daily
reaching our shores, but it keeps losing
part of it's already slender stock, and
all pulling at it. This means higher rates
must replenish. it's stock before autumn
avoided. Altogether, prospects are not
Immediately favorable to another great
outbreak of bull speculation. Even the
because the same conditions prevail
there as here. This weeks bourse settle
ment disclosed a considerable amount OF
weak speculations, quite enough to neu-
tralize the good, effects of the superficial
political calm. All things reviewed, i hold
the opinion that we shall not see much
real .go" in the markets this side of
April n it will depend then upon cir
cumstances outside of our own market
whether speculation again rapidly broad
ems out or not. We want a lead, and
above all we want money in cash because
we have not enough to serve both active
industries and active stock markets.