The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-03-14
YESTERDAYS SMASH
 IN THE STOCK MARKET
A SPECIAL REVIEW OF THE
 DAY'S WORK.

Most Sensational Decline in Years
 Immense Transactions-Money Rates Were Higher and Bear Rumora of
 Trouble Abroad CIeverIy Circulated
 Helped the Outpour of stocks-The
 New Secretary of the Treasury Af-
 lords Help to the Situation After m
 Important Conference Held mt the
 White House-Notes of the Day.
 The most sensational decline in prices
 for several years occurred on the stock exchange yesterday. Except that
 money rates were higher and the tone on the foreign exchanges was unfavor-
 able, there was no news to account for
 the break in prices. The market open CT weak under the influence of lower
 prices for Americans abroad, and the drop in consols to the lowest price since
 1886. At first the downward movement
 6ASNQNoAJ anu Ilte S6lllHR .UlQ not appear to be of an urgent character,
 put as soon as the rate for call money got above six per cent. heavy blocks of stock were offered for sale apparently without regard to prices, and the down. ward trend of quotations became pre- cipitated Breaks of from half to a point between sales were frequent. and n buying power was so limited that 1t seemed to be difficult in some of the weaker features to execute selling or oers It was noticed that weakness centere1 in Reading, the Hartman railroad and the Hill stocks, and the weakness of the latter was closely as- soclated in the minds of the prefesion- al traders with the departure for Flu rope yesterday of J. P. Morgan The drop in Reading was as rapid and as sensational yesterday as was the sharp upward movement in the same stock week ago, but there was no more news to account for the days move- ment than there was for the former one. After the decline had reached it's 1ull momentum about midday there was rally followed by another break, which in turn was succeeded by re- neWal of the rally, but the better tone did not hold, and just before the close there was a final slump with the list generally weak, and prices at or near the lowest of the day. Union Pacific, | for instance, closed at its lowest
 There was nothing in the days de- velopments of sufficient importance to cause any such wholesale throwing over of stocks as took place, aside from money and foreign markets. The su- perstition of the thirteenth was men tioned in Wall street as having some thing to do with the weakness of the market.
 The advance in the money rate was | attributed to preparations by the banks to meet heavy payments coming due | within the next few days. These in- clude besides the regular interest pay ments due on March 15 an installment r of $5O0C00oO on the Pennsylvania rail- road note issue of s6O,OOOO0O and $15,- 100000 for the Standard Oil dividend. When the high rate was reached there was considerable lending in the New York market by out oI town banks. l. and this lending played a considerable part in the lower quotations for call money during the afternoon.
 Inquiry after the close of the mar ket developed nothing to show that any of the stock exchange houses was in trouble. It was said that brokers had plenty of time to prepare for the situation by calling on their custom CTS for margins and that the losses shown at the days low figures were suffered by those who had held onto their stocks and not by the brokers.
 At the low prices of the day the more important declines from the previous nights close were as follows: Reading 12 1-S, Union Pacific Il IA, Great Northern F, Northern Pacific il. Copper ' 1-2, Chicago & Northwestern IA, Canadian Pacific IF, St. Paul ', Sugar 6, Baltimore & Ohio a-S, Atchison 1-2, Southern Pa cif1c 1-3 Colorado Southern 5-8 3 5-S.