Daily Arizona silver belt., 1907-06-20
COPPER MARKET
 MUCH MIXED UP
George Walker Thinks That There Is Reason to Doubt that Decline in Price Will Come Soon--Large Con sumers Worried Over Situation.

George l.. Walker says in his copper
 letter of June 15:
 The copper market is mixed. Lake
 may be quoted all the way from 24M
 cents to 25la cents, and Eiectrolytic
 from 24 to 25A cents per pound l
 know of sale this week of 250,00O
 pounds of lake copper for immediate
 delivery at PAS cents per pound. This
 copper was supplied by one of the
 smaller producers. The significance of
 the sale was that the seller needed the
 money, and that the buyer could not
 obtain an equal amount of copper any
 where else at as low a price. The larg-
 est producers of Lake copper are still asking 25l@ to 26 cents.
 While the air is filed with reports of coming concession in copper prices and while speculative copper in London continues to decline steadily, there is still reason to doubt that there will be any immediate cut in prices. Producers will have no occasion to get frightened or worried for six weeks to two months to come, as they will have comparative ly little copper on hand before late in July or early in August. On the other hand, the largest consumers are exceed ingly worried over the situation. They have been talking about getting togeth- CT with the producers and trying to arrange price basis for the coming three months.
 Many of the consumers say that they fear a decrease in the consumption de- mand in the near future. They do not object to current prices for copper, but they are unwilling to buy large lots for distant advance delivery, unless they are practically guaranteed that prices will be maintained.
 The present temper of the market is such as to encourage the belief that copper will not sell below 24 cents in July or August.
 The Copper Share Market
 We are in bear market. Values, earnings, dividends and future prospects have been forgotten. Sentiment rules. It is making some men sell for profits on the short side. Others are selling because forced to by the decline; and sentiment is meanwhile preventing those from buying who have the money and want the stocks. How far such eondi- tions will depress prices is problem atical. The market is getting into Q stronger position every day, however, and those traders who want to be sure to buy stocks at bottom prices should immediately begin buying the best of them on a scale down. Something is likely to happen almost any day that will cause substantial rally in the coppers.
 In these days when "the curse of predatory wealth" is being discussed so much by men with trembling voices and tense muscles, it is easy for one to be fooled into believing that all of the really good things in the investment world were long since absorbed by the predatory rich and that only those cast aside by the rich men are left for the common people. It is the habit of al- most everyone to speculate mentally on the tremendous profits accruing on the securities held by the millionaire class, and to feel convinced that some some special privilege or dispensation has given to the wealthy alone the particu- lar class of investments which have them to multiply their millions from year to year.
 On the other hand, we are confronted | with the incontrovertible fact that there | is no other great industry, aside from agriculture, in which the common peo- pie, the public, is relatively so exten- sively interested.
 It is probable that the dividend pay ing copper mines of the world are owned by individuals and families who | number altogether more than 100000 | people, and it is probable also that the of these stocks held by very wealthy people is comparatively smaller than of almost any other class of securi- ties. The wealthy holders of copper stocks also, as a rule, have been made ,ich by these particular investments.
 Take for example Calumet & Heela. which is probably one of the most profitable mining industries ever estab- ished. It has only 100000 shares of tock, and this is held by between g. 100 and 4,000 separate individuals. A treat many of the holders were for nerly miners employed by the company, md many of them have long since re- fred and are living on their incomes. The total amount paid in on this stock y original holders was SIP per share, r $l,200,000. Dividends so far paid ggregate $1,033.5O per share a total f $l03,350,000, and the stock has re- ently had market value of $500 to l, 1000 per share. A similar story can be told of nearly II of the worlds greatest copper mines. 'uincy, Wolverine, Osceola, Mohawk. -malgamated, Anaconda, North Butte, { opper Range, Calumet & Arizona, Utah $ consolidated, Greene Cananea, Old Do C 'inion, and other great copper produc. a rs, have all the way from 1000 to 10,- t D0 stockholders each, and, strangely 0 nough, the stocks of the dividend pay Il lg companies mentioned yield at pres Tt all the way from to 15 per cent ( hD,. A