The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-07-29
HAS BEEN AT A LOW EBB.
Speculation on Stock Exchange Dur
ing the Past Week

New York, July 2S.-Bradstreet's
financial review will say: Speculation
is still without important movements,
and the activity of trading on the stock
exchange has been at a low ebb all
week. The professional traders supply
nearly all the actual interest, the pub
lie is taking little part, and the pools
and large operators rest while these
conditions exist. London has not been
a factor, and the market there and
abroad is experiencing the usual mid
summer dullness. AS far as the rail-
road share list is concerned, the favor
able crop prospects and the large in
creases in current earnings reported by
some important lines, to say nothing
of confident predictions that tonnage
will continue heavy during the remain
der of the year, keep up a steady to
strong tone, and facilitates short-lived
rallies from time to time. This pro-
cess has been particularly noticeable
in connection with the grangers and
southwestern stocks. A few of The
specialties have been the objects of
manipulation, and even the industrials
shared to some extent in the bulliSh
influences. The last named portion of
the market, however, on the whole, is
neglected.
Foreign exchange has been steady
and dull at below the gold point, and
fears of a renewed movement of specie
to Europe are laid aside. Indeed, as
noted elsewhere, the London market
and the foreign financial press are in
clined to dwell upon the probability
of having to supply demand for gold
from this side in the autumn and win
ter, when our cotton and grain exports
assume their expected activity. The
unwonted firmness of the money mar
ket here has certainly been a factor of
increasing Importance this week. The
market was too dull to say that this
has developed any positive bullishness.
The fact that the New York bank re-
serves are low; that money does not
come back readily from the interior,
and the supply of funds for both call
and time loans has been reduced to
such an extent that interest rates are
decidedly firmer, and it costs appre-
ciably more to carry stocks, are. how
ever, calculated to affect speculative
sentiment.
1t is appreciated that the activity of
general business is creating an en-
larged demand for money in the circu-
lation, and there is an idea that when
this is supplemented by the need aris-
ing in connection with crop movement,
there may be scarcity of funds for
speculative purposes. The disposition
III SOIile QudTleIS is, III laCl, 10 preach
conservatism. and to regard the posi-
BILE absorption of capital in actual bust
ness as liable to check further improve
ment in either speculative or invest
ment values. Time money has been in
increased demand on the street this
week, or rather the supply has been
smaller, and to Az per cent are the
rates generally quoted, while call
money has held Unexpectedly firm at
3lh to 4 per cent. These rates have
not. indeed. been sufficiently high to
induce liquidation, but in the absence
of any marked augmentation of the
New York bank reserves, they are cited
as indications that an autumnal
BOOM" based on good crops and rail-
road earnings, is not a certainty.
The subsistence of street railway
strikes in New York has left the mar
ket Indifferent to manifestations else
where of the same character Reports
of coming deals and combinations in
the railroad world are for the moment
without decided effect and the specula-
tive community, as whole, appears to
be waiting for the outcome of the sit
uation, though on Friday the profess
SIGNALS evinced more of a disposition TO
discount the situation. their buying and
support resulting in a general rise
throughout the active stock list.