The times., 1900-12-28

| tion among conservative people or II may
| be Tor eight or ten points. as the bears
| hope for. At present there is no way of
| gauging how far 1t will GO On the whole.
! however, knowing the temper of the in
| siders to be bullish, and knowing that
! the public has not as yet got all the
stocks il desires, some of the most care
| ful people are confident that there Will be
| excellent buying on any reaction OF a few
points, and that another upward move
ment Will begin shortly. This reasoning
is, of course. based on the supposition
| that there is to be a reaction now. If the
decline does not come, but waits for the
new year, it may be larger then. There
was little news of consequence yesterday
Money was easy and the talk of the bank
statement was confident The banks have
gained in cash. The strength OF the mar
ket was in the industrals. but Northern
Pacific and one or two other railway Sc
curities showed buoyancy. Ii is now little
doubted that there is TO be Northern
Pacific deal of Importance Earnings
statements were good
The sensation of the opening was Peo-
pies Gas. which went to 10 Immediately
| This is the price that has been talked of
by the bulls in the stock. The jump of
10 points In Gas has been one OF the most
sudden in the recent big bull movement.
and every time it went above that figure
ii was sold short. The short interest is.
in fact. responsible for the sharpness of
the advance, as ii was forced to cover
on Wednesday and yesterday The story
that the Vanderbilts are buying the stock
may have caused a fright among the
bears. but there is no very good reason
for believing that there was any such buy
ing The stock went back TO 107 later in
the day and hung near that figure.
Northern Pacific common was one of
the railway securities that had good ad-
vance after the opening Ii went above
s4 at one time and it was evident that
the insiders were willing and even anx-
ious to buy all the stock that was offered.
If the preferred stock is 10 be retired and
replaced by a low interest-bearing bond
is is easy to see that the present price of
the common stock is not too high. 1t
closed at SO IL. The other Pacifcs held
their own fairly well.
The Traction securities were active but
went off with the remainder of the mar
ket early in the day and did not regain
their losses. Brooklyn and Manhattan
both seem likely TO make new high prices
in the near future. The talk of lease of
the Manhattan by the Metropolitan pec-
pie and of a large ownership of the
Brooklyn stock by the same interest is
persistent. Another story which is more
likely to have some foundation is that
the Pennsylvania people are buying
Brooklyn Rapid Transit with the idea of
combining ii with their Long Island rail-
way purchase. 1t is said by the people
that put out this story that President
Baldwin of the Long Island will succeed
President Rossiter early In the new year
Railway men who have been watching the
Pennsylvania deals recently, state that the
good advance in Brooklyn looks very much
like their business, OF course, the an
nouncement of such a change of owner
ship in the company would be sufficient to
advance the price many points, probably
above par. in fact. The idea that such
thing may be in the wind is almost as
good.