The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-08-23
STOCK MARKET FEATURES
ALI EYES WERE ON READINGS
 SENSATIONAL ADVANCE.

1t Even overshadOwed Peace NegOtin-
 lions for the Time-The Fries Catch
 the Fever--An Sorts of RumOrs as to
 Reading-NO New Issue of New Ha-
 ven stock-A Good Deal of Profit
 Taking.
 Wall street habitues had their eyes on Readings slSyward scraping act yester- day. and even the peace negotiations fell into the background temporarily.
 All sorts of rumors were out to ac- count for Readings new big advance, such as covering of shorts, new great coal deal, etc. The coal deal story was soon denied. A more probably story was that. some big operator was in the throes with a big lot of shorts out. However, there is a bog pool in Read ing, and it was having busy and pros- porous days work
 Out of a total of 25s,0OO shares in the first hour Reading monopolized 100000 shares.
 After the excitement in Reading was over the interest. again centered in the peace conference. Everybody was ex- pecting hitch in the conference, and another appeal to arms. Tn such case, 1t was the popular view that there would be a setback of ? to points, The outside public was doing next to noth- ing in stocks. ,..
 Delaware and Hudson made another new record reaching 225.
 Union Pacific acted as if the recent profit, taking had not been thoroughly digested. ~t
 Fries lively spurts yesterday was said to be due to desire to market more Erie bonds. Considerable litera- ture was sent out all over the country stating that Erie was ia buy"-'In- trinsical1y cheap" etc.
 Missouri Pacific was duly marked up in the early dealings, and then lost the gain.
 St. Paul sells ex-dividend of 1-2 per cent. to-day. When Illinois Central sold ex-dividend the same amount recently 1t quickly recovered it's dividend.
 The behavior of the general list in- dicated that good deal of profit talk ing was going on under cover of the rise in the coalers. Union Pacific, Unit ed States Steel, Pennsylvania, and Bal timore and Ohio, were weak during a good deal Of the day. and every little rally was used for putting out long stock. The street was skeptical about this, and did not participate to any extent in the buying of Reading and Erie.
 Readings action gave a strong im- petus to the growing belief that there was something more than the equities of the property and it's earnings behind the rose that has taken place in the stock. As per cent. dividend payer 1t is now far out of the line as an in- vestnent. Talk of 200 for Reading was heard.
 As for the "Corner" rumors. circulat- ed yesterdayi it was alleged that the un- named short is one of the biggest men in the street. and that he was short 100000 shares. No, one, however, was time as if some one was climbing for the stock.
 Another report was that block of 3O,0OO 10 40,U0O shares of Reading com- mon was stopped at 12O--that is that somebody was short to the amount mentioned, and that he had ordered it "covered" at 12O, so as to stop loss on the short side.
 Although the official price of copper is sixteen cents 8 pound, it was said yesterday that actual sales for prompt delivery have been made as high as sixteen and one-half cents, so great is the demand for the metal. These sales were mostly in lost of 200O00 pounds, but the aggregate was considerable. A report that a block of Illinois Gen. tral stock had been sold by the Railway Securities company to the Union Pacific elicited this semi- official statement yes- terday: ''The Railway Securities com pany does not contemplate the retire. me1t of it's collateral trust certificates, neither @has~it sold to Union Pacific or any other interests the S0,OOO shares of Illinois Central stock which it holds. No such transfer is contemplated"
 (Continued on Eighth Page.)