The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-05-04
WALL STREET REVIEW
HIT CHANGES FAIL TO SHOW
 FEvERISH EXPERIENCE.
Opportunity Had Been Given to Aake Provision to Avert Failures and to Provide for Support
 in the Market.

New York. May a-The net changes in kooay'e stock market show little of the xsverish and nervous experience of the
 When the market closed yesterday there Eao little realization of the nature of the unonctal troubles reflected In the collapse yesterday of the so-called Webb group of etqcks on the stock exchange and in the curb market. Today opportunity had been 4oxen 10 make provision to avert the threatened failures and to provide. for oupp0rt In the stock market The fact that no stocks arc deliverable on Satur- day under contracts according to stock exchange rules and that loans made on friday carry over to Monday. admitted , " help the efforts to avoid trouble. There wes q threatening break in prices at the opeutng of the stock market in spite of strong upward movement in Louisville md Nashville, and Pennsylvania. These < advances were lost however. and the sup porting orders at weak points were found Z necessary to check indiscriminate liqui- d4tion.
 When St. Paul was selling at 100 share lots at l7o there were bids in the market for ZOO shares at TO 1-4 The centralized buying was not followed up when it was seen that the selling was checked. After the bank statement appeared the buying wns renewed in more aggressive man. nef and the market developed fairly 6uoyant tone, with the closing active and etrong. Earlier losses were generally wiped out and net gains were quite com
 
 posed to be immediately concerned in the disturbance Rutland preferred fiuctuated between 1O3 and 99. with the last sale at 70. compared with 1o2 last night. St. Lawrence and Adirondack was variously quoted at 50 bid. 1oo asked, at 75 and l20 asked. with the closing quotation 50 bid and 100 asked. The increase in cash shown by the banks was a surprise. as the week indicated a loss of upwards of $s.O00,0o0. The relief thus afforded was a welcome one. In view of the loan expan- sion of upwards of s10.0oo.ooo The sharp hoped. has served to relieve the tension of the money situation. although an ac- tive money market is expected next week.
 shown in the stock market this week and efforts at supporting prices have not met with entire success. The month end re- quirements precipftated a stringent con aggravated by the collapse in Interna- tional Power and the distrust engendered in some of the other industrials supposed to have affiliations with that company or whose conditions are equally shrou6ed in mystery. This undoubtedly led to some discrimination by the banks against in- dustrials as collateral in loans. The in- genius admission by one of the principals in the Power episode that the slump was due to the neglect of his patron to put in buying order for the stock at the same time as his selling order was im- pressive as an example of how some of the recent unexplained advances in prices might have been brought about
 Matched orders' and wash sales are terms whose significance are well under stood in Wall Street as covering a pro- cess of manipulation by which the hold CT of a large proportion of the shares of stock can advance the quotation by a series of transactions with himself by orders through different brokers. An ap- pearance of great activity and strength may thus be imparted to a stock which Is in itself a powerful attraction to spec uiators to deal in the security on a mar gin even without knowledge of faith in the intrinsic merit of the property. The most striking fact in the Power episode was the entire lack of general market rise of over 100 points. when attempts were made to effect real sales entire collapse was the result. The episode in vfted attention to the recent course of many other stocks. Even amongst the standard railroad stocks there are in- stances where the market turn over has amounted to seN ral times the outstand- ing capital of the company In the course of few days, with a resulting price change of only few points.
 Taken in connection with complaints of commission houses of the scarcity of or ders from the general public, these facts awaken distrust of the genuineness of some of the price movements in the mar ket. Day after day new high record a prices are established in many standar l stocks to say nothing of the large crop of new and untried industrial securities of which there is little public knowledge beyond the recorded price movements in the market. It Is almost an invariabe rule that declining money resources is the instrument for disclosing the weak market position of securities Stocks, whose high prices are due to buying with borrowed resources with a view to only temporary holding must be thrown over when loans begin to be called in The evidence of their instability of valne causes them to be dscriminated against and aggravates the tendency to contrac- ton of credit resources. deeper i'm pression than Is superfcialIy apparent has been caused bv the action this week of the New York Clearing House author ities. There have been heavy loan expan- sion since the first of the year by the trust companies. The weekly bank state nlent reveals that the banks are down to near the legal reserve limit which is thus seen to figure not only against their own deposits but those of the trust com panies and many interior institutions who also keep cash deposits in New York