Los Angeles herald., 1907-03-07
STIRRING SCENES
IN WALL STREET
DESCRIBED AS ERICH MEMS
PANIC"
Holders Of Big Blocks Of Securities in
Wild Rush to Unload-Wide
Fluctuations In Favor
ite Stocks
BY Associated Press.

BY Associated Press.
NEW YORK, March 6.--wall street
has seldom n ever seen such varied ana
violent fluctuations in prices Of securi-
ties as those which occurred today.
There have been panics in the stock
market when prices fell apparently into
a bottomess abyss there have been
boom periods when the bold operations
of daring speculators seemed TO be
carrying prices illimitably upward; hut
the feverish upward and downward al
terations which characterized today
movement have had few parallels.
The market was two sided from the
start. Then followed period of abrupt
reversals of the general current OF
prices and ultimately excited and dis
orderly attempts at cross cuts. The
whole movement was without definite
news to explain it but the volume and
the aggressiven ess of the operations
were sufficient to stamp them as coming
implied Importance of the origin OF the
present dealings and the mystery
which hangs over 1t which have given
to its impressiveness to the speculative
Wall street parlance has found a
phrase rich mems panic" to define the
condition. This is based upon the sup
position, quite commonly held in the
neighborhood of the stock exchange,
that men of great wealth who accumu-
lated large holdings of stocks last year
find themselves without prospect OF
selling out to advantage in the present
public distaste for the stock markets.
1t is believed that they have been
prompted as well by the urgency OF
other calls upon them due to the uni
versal pressure for capital and by
fears of being overtaken by a period of
industrial depression, to liquidate their
holdings as best they may. The action
of the market for several days and of
special stocks notably has given color
to this theory of the events in progress.
To this condition of sentiment was
preciptated today a report that carried
with it an inference that the supposedly
capitalists were in reality taking ad-
vantage of the unsettlement of values
to carry out another Reading exploit.
The ruinor alleged with positiveness
that certain large centralized holdings
of Reading had been taken over by Mr..
Hartman, securing his control of the
property The heavy liquidation of
yesterday in Atchison was alleged to
be Union Pacific holdings to provide
resources for the Reading operation.
The bears in Reading were thrown
into panic and there was scramble
to cover all through the list The re-
port was impossible of veritication and
it's plausible and likely features were
so mixed as to leave the opinion at sea
The bears were intimidated and were
disinclined to pursue their attacks on
prices of other stocks.
The Reading rumor came into the
market in the midst of drastic liqui-
dating movement in Canadian PaclhC
which had forced that stock down, over
Z points below yesterdays closing level
This had much the same effect as the
violent slump in Atchison yesterday
and had served to break the whole
market The reversal of the movement
was all the more abrupt and violent on
that account
There also was very heavy liquida-
tion in Pennsylvania, Amalgamated
Copper and Union Pacific. The absorp-
tion of the Hill stocks and of Reading
however. was constant throughout the
day Atchison also met no such selling
pressure as that of yesterday.
These evidences of resistance in the
market already had divided speculative
sentiment and the Reading incident
turned prices decsively upward No
general conditions.
The last prices were generally the
best of the day and an active buying
movement was in force.
Bonds were irregular. Total sales,
par value, $1.730.000
United states 3s advanced u per
cent on call.