Evening star., 1905-10-08
THE INSIDE OF
WALL STREET
BY EDWIN LEFEyRE.

The perplexities of professional Wall
street have not diminished. The reason Is
that there has been no change in the stock
market. Higher money rates have come as
everybody expected. The bears thought that
higher money would mean lower stock
prices. They were wrong. And yet If the
bears have been no more successful in the
past fortnight than they have been in the
past two months, the bulls cannot point to
any sweeping or inspiring victory though
they can justly be content with the mar
ket's resistance to the other sides attack.
But the future for all that, does not APP
pear to be any more clearly defined than
1t has been at any time these many weeks.
So many people have been wrong SO
long that on all sides you hear the self
defensive assertion that We are confronted
by state of affairs without precedent in
the history of the New York Stock Ex-
change. Conditions are so prosperous
throughout the country that there is moth
ing visible to the naked eye to sell stocks
on. Stocks are SO high that they are sell
ing above a conservative investment level
and far above the speculative level 1ustifi-
able by the amount of interest the stock
exchange public is just now taking in the
game OF the ticker. If you can neither buy
nor sell with comfort the only thing 10
do Is to do nothing, which is the most un-
to do
The situation has been studied and an
alyzed and diagnosed and prognosed and
everything else by all sides from all points
of view. The number of explanations why
the market should decline, but doesn't or
why prices should advance, but don't, is be-
gion. 1t is impossible to offer any new
rte
of what We heard months ago. which. by
reason of Wall streets short memory, seem
to have the charm of novelty One of
these arguments. the most persistent hav-
ing more lives than twenty cats, is that the
big men" have the stocks and must un-
load. In order to unload they must devel-
op wide and active market, to lure the
public on. Until stocks pass from strong
hands into weak it is vain to look for a
panic, no matter how many frenzied ffnan-
cial writers, at comfortable expense for
philanthropic advertisements, predict it. The
only portion of the public" that holds any
quantity of securities worth talking about
are the Investors, and investors won't sell
| II their business is good, because while
their securities may be high enough to in
yite selling, so are other securities equally
+ high. AS long as basic conditions continue
as they are, there will be no Investment
selling, which Is the most terrifying of
all. And. equally. so long as general bust
ness is good the big men won't be forced
to sacrifice their very large speculative
noiulnSS- "A flcH man s panic, which is a
decidedly unpleasant kind of panic, is thus
far away. The question resolves itself into
the inevitable: Can the public be coaxed
back TO Wall street In sufficient numbers
to permit of wholesale unloading?
T 1t is a particularly exasperating question
to consider because very obviously the an
swer depends almost as much on personal
temperament as on powers of analysis or
of observation, and moreover it is assumed
that the public won't come back unless II
is on an ascending market. 1t has never
been known to flock to the street in search
of bargains when prices Were tumbIing
Prices are already so high that to start a
bull market from the present level means
that by the time the public begins to buy
in earnest the quotations will be far above
the danger point. Even this consideration
however, would not be regarded as an in
supefable obstacle to a fairly good-sized
boom IL Ii were not for the effect which
the recent life insurance disclosures and
other revelations of high financial practices
must have had on the public mind There
Is no doubt that faith in financiers of hith-s
erto unassailed repute has been Justly
Wall street men and methods, of the Lead
ers of the next bull market2
<
This is not a financial but psychological
story as gospel truth, and whose friends
share equally In his belief. would tell you
that the public has grown wise, that 1t is