The copper era., 1904-09-22
PROBABLE B CENT COPPER.
Walkers Weekly Letter in Boston Con-
 merciaI Predicts This Figure Soon.

Walkers Weekly Letter in Boston Con-
 merciaI Predicts This Figure Soon.
 In his weekly copper letter in the Commercial, George L. Walker says:
 The copper market is holding steadily, and a slightly increased disposition is being shown on the part of consumers to buy for ad- vance deliveries. Lake is l2i cents, with most producers asking l2-so cents. Electrolytic is 12s cents bid. There is a steadily growing demand for casting copper. The export movement continues very heavy. Export, during the month of August aggregated 24,43l long tons, exceed ing all previous records excepting that made last January. The eX- ports of the eight months are 1j6,- 334 tons. being l7.sg9 tons greater than the total shipments of 1905. Despite the enormous export move ment in August, the ''visible supply of copper in Europe and ahoat thereto" increased during the month only 54s tons. This proves that there is no sign of any let-up in the grow ing foreign consumptive demand. In domestic trade circles it is said that there are noticeable indications of improvement. Feeling is deCid- edly hopeful, and the prospect is that l3-cent copper is near at hand.
 From the high. prices reached early last xse=1 lhs.sers sold off slight ~.z. \.Ge days of sagging quotations. On the decline the trad ing element complained at the scant volume of selling. At all times there were good buying orders just below the market, and apparently the de- mand was not nearly supplied. Evi- dently this is to continue d market of special stocks for some time to come. One stock after another Is be- ing picked out and given boost, and then other stocks start up in sympa- thy. As yet there has been no big active buying of everything in sight, such as usually marks the top of q boom.
 For some time past I have been calling attention to the fact that there were almost no copper stocks for sale, and predicting that as soon as the buying orders began to ac- cumulate there would be some sensa- tional advances. What 1 meant will now be fully understood by those who have watched the market. A com pariSon will illustrates: St. Paul was the leader of the New York market last week, advancing ls points on transactions in about 3S.O00 shares. The same day OsceOla T. points on the Boston market on transactions in less than one thousand shares. Other advance of q similar character may be expected.
 The movement that has so for de veloped can hardly be considered even the beginning of the great cop per share boom that is coming. It is simply the recovery that was bound to come naturally when falsehood and misrepresentation> had exhausted their influence. The investing pub lie of New England, New York and Lake Superior has begun buying cop per stocks simply because it has at last found out that there was no basis for the claims that enormous stocks of copper were being stored in an effort to maintain prices: that an Scent or a lo-cent copper market might result from the forced sale of this surplus, aided by Amalgamated manipulation: that aluminium was likely to become q formidable com petitor of copper in the metal mar ket, or for other pernicious innuen- does along the same line.
 The real boom in copper stocks will come when the productive ca pacity of the worlds mines has been so exceeded bv the conSumptive de mand that the metal again advances to II or l5 cents per pound. That event may not take place for d year or more: but there iS the very best of reason for the belief that copper must sell considerably higher in the not distant future. The advance in prices will find the copper producing companies already prosperous. and it will double their earnings and divi- deuds