Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-09-20
BULLS AND BEARS

| Special Dispatch to The Star.
! NEW YORK, September 20.-Gold imports
and enga gements of gold in this seasons
movement so far are brought to total or
S4,oo00O0 by the additional purchase OF
| $4,000 by the City Bank yesterday. The
voice of the carper who cried Stock job
bling" when the movement was inaugurated
last week. has been stilled by the accumu-
iating evidence that there Is legitimate
exchange profit in purchasing the yellow
metal abroad and shipping it here. There is
also less said about the impossibiiity of OBJ
| tanning any such amount of gold as $50, Ooo.-
| OOo should 1t be needed. for despite the OBJ
stacle placed in the way. such a general
advance in European discount rates and
| ris' in the price of bars in the open market.
| more than $4,000 has been taken in one
| week s time. with call money averaging lit
| tie more than per cent and with demand
sterling averaging about AS. Exchange
tran sactions are bewildering mysteries to
the speculative community in general, and.
except unusually favortng circumstances,
! only small part of the banking community
participates in gold movement. 1t usually
takes enormous credit resources and special
| facilities to initiate gold imports. and very
| extensive movement may. indeed. be carried
| on through whole season by few firms
| only.
doubt as to the genuine character Of int
tlating arguments may obtain. In thor
oughiy well-informed quarters 1t was assert
ed days before the first gold was bought in
the open market in London for this side
| that the amount of our imports this fall
would be limited only by our needs, and,
while 1t Is said in these same quarters now
that for the next week or not much gold
may be taken. because there is little or mono
In the open market. the prediction is re-
peated. with emphasis. that II s5o00oO00
gold is needed 1t will be had without much
trouble.
discounts will have to be raised to an
un1ieasantly high rate abroad. and gold
prices Will have to be advanced uncom-
fortably to offset the margins of possible
fall in exchange in this market and not
at-all inconvenjent rise in the rates and 1t
would appear to be more than doubtful II
foreign bankers would not regard the
trouble likely to ensue at home from ex-
cessive efforts to keep gold there as not
worth the amount of gold that We may re-
Quire.
One of the mysteries Of the ways of stock
markets the world over is the habit they
have of dscounting something foreSeen, or
expected. but not of lasting effect, then for
getting 1t and resumng the movement that
may have been in progress when the dis
counting period began For example, the
London market has been declining
for several days on expectatio of fur
Their advance in the Bank of England's dis
count rate tomorrow. Cable reports said to-
day that feeling was beginning to be
ticed that advance in the rate had been
sufficiently discounted in the stock market.
and that shorts were disposed to cover. the
implication being that on the announcement
of change in the bank rate stocks would
move up again. One can understand why
the stock market would enter on a long de-
cline by way of discounting tendency to-
ward prostration in general business, the
effect of crop failures and the like but it
Is difficult to discover the reason for dis
counting something that Is apparently to
have only a trifing momentary influence
on values.