The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-02-28
STOCK MARKET FEATURES
SHOW or STRENGTH SOON FOL-
 LOWED BY WEAKNESS.

Heavy Drop in Metropolitan and Hill
 Stocks Closed a Little Above the
 LOwest-BanI<s Lose to the Treasury
 --ConsoIidated Gas and POIitics--Gos-
 sip.
 The market was quite strong yester- day but in the afternoon prices dropped.
 The market is trading one, and likely to be such, the rest of this week at least.
 The, Wabashes were the only issues that kept strong.
 The fall of I points in Great Northern preferred, of 4 in Northern Pacific and or F to 21 points in such shares as Gnlol Pacific, Reading, Consolidated Gas, Northwestern, Shelters and Amal- ganated Copper, with the local trac- uons at the lowest figures they have touched in long while, showed where the selling pressure was.
 Pfesldent E. F. Ripley, of the Santa F'e, Is preparing to issue $17,296,000 of hfty-year 1 per cent. bonds. This is the remainder of the $50,000,O00 issue authorized last year The money so raised is to be used in improving the eompany's California overland line.
 The decline in some of the high priced rails and inrustrials gave the Impression that liquidation had started again.
 The renewed, break in Metropolitan Street Railway and Metropolitan Se- cufltles in the last hour caused general rear lear that something is occurring which does not appear on the surface. It was suggested in one quarter that perhaps the merger plan will fall through Late weakness in the contracts for the new securities on the curb seemed to con- firm this view
 Both Metropolitan Traction and Met ropolltan Securities sold lower than at any sinme since the Interborough deal was put through. There has been steady liquidation of both
 Along with the decline in the Metro polltan issues, Interborough stock fell points on the curb, and the preferred stock and 4ls per cent bonds of the new lnterborough -Metropolitan combin- alton went 2 to points lower.
 Some of the new February weekly earnings were: Chicago Great Western increased SHAFTS, Colorado Southern in- creased S50,594 and Mobile and Ohio increased $52,3S4, The Southern rail- way and Louisville and Nashville earn ings had no effect.
 Mercantile Marine securities on the curb were, during most of the day, en- tirely unaffected by the coming wind ing up of the underwriting syndicate, which took the $50,000,000 of 41s per cent. bonds
 The movement in the Wabash issues is credited to the Field Waldorf clique some time ago the Wassermanns ex- pressed themselves as very bullish on the stocks, and thought they would be the leaders in campaign of low priced shares.
 From appearances the rlse which has now covered portion of four days had eliminated, and the men who partici- pated in putting up stocks were getting out as rapidly as they could, prepared to see another setback of some propor- tlons Appearances, of course, are sometimes deceptive.
 After selling at 154b there began to be more sellers of Union Pacic than buyers, and the stock sagged off freely It was the opinion on the board that the Kuhn, Loeb interests were taking profits on stock they had bought from 15S1s down to 1501a last week, with the dividend or.
 Stocks broke rather sharply in the last hour led by the Hill group. Great Northern by 2:30 o'clock was down Il points from Mondays high price, and Northern Pacific was down about two- thirds as much. This caused heavy selling of United States Steel stocks in connection with the reported hitch in the ore deal.
 Contrary to the rest of the market Consolidated Gas declined at the open ing and made It's low price of 156b soon after The slump occurred on sales of 5000 shares, but there was a quick recovery ot over tw9 points. The opinion is growing that there has been fully as much political selling on the break from 175 as liquidation.
 Americans opened firm in London and improved on New York support. Union Pacific leading. Southern Pacific and Missouri Pacific were in demand
 The Gates clique got the credit for the heaviest selling of stocks during the early decline, just as it got the credit for furnishing many of the buying or ders during the three-day rise On the face of things, it seemed to be profit taking on a large scale on stocks bought several points down.
 The Berlin berse yesterday was clos ed, holiday having been declared on account of the wedding of Prince Eitel Frederick,
 There was still some apprehension that trouble will result in the coal la bor situation, notwithstanding all tho talk about compromise and the opin- ions that President Roosevelt's inter- vention was bull point.
 The degree to which we are becom- ing a luxury y-consuming nation is shown in the eomclete statement of trade for January. In that month the imports of luXuries were $16,500,00O, a gain of over $5,300,000 over 1904, and in seven months the amount has exceeded $100, ,000000.
 On each rally there seemed to be good deal of Great Northern and North ern Pacific stock for sale, Some usu- ally well-informed authorities express ed the opinion that the Union Pacific company had very largely reduced it's holdings of Great Northern and North ern Pacific during the rise of the last three months,
 One of the factors that made for low CT prices was the steady drain on the banks by the sub-treasury, which has now produced a loss since Friday of $3,620000.
 NEW BOWLING ALLEYS.