The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-05-17
COTTON MARKET
 AGAIN ADVANCES Some IrreguIarity Is Shown But
 Prices Hold Up SPOTS STILL VERY STRONG Strength of the Market Is Made Pos sible By the Fact That Mills Have
 Sold Ahead and Now
 Must Begin Buying.
SPOTS STILL VERY STRONG

New York, May 16-The cotton market opened steady at an advance of 4 to F points in response to higher cables than expected, big English spot sales and bull fish weekend figures. Good weather caused some irregularity at first, but the market ruled higher during the middle of the morning, when prices were about F to 19 points above the closing figures of yesterday on covering on shorts and talks of bulish spot changes.
 The recent sharp advance in the price of cotton has given some folk the idea that with the termination of the period of market depression the future of the market will hold out only promises and encouragement for the man who has actual cotton to sell. The fallacy of such views is monumental for the very simple reason most of the trade utility of the future market-the machinery whereby maximum consumption is promoted and encouraged-has been destroyed by the han placed upon the buying of specula- tive contracts calling for the delivery of cotton in the southern states
 Normally, the utility of the future mar ket is manifold.
 Actual cotton is bought on the spot from the farmer and sold on forward com- mltment to the spinner. The future mar ket, when free from unnatural restraint, supplies insurance against price fuctua- tions and the losses occasioned thereby and also enables the broker, merchant, spinner and weaver to turn their every attention to the increase and expansion of their business, thus constantly enlarsing the annual requirement for raw cotton. This is true by reason of the fact that under normal market conditions producer, dealer and consumer may avoid specula- tive risk by buying futures when they sell spots and by selling futures when they buy spots. While speculative risk may thus be avoided by the individual or the class, 1t can not be eliminated, con- sequently the trader who wishes to secure protection against speculative risk does so by transferring this risk to the shoul- ders of someone else, logically a profess sional speculator, who knows what he IS doing and who for consideration risks his money to relieve some other man from worry and financial danger.
 Of course there will be buyers in the field just as soon as cotton begins to come In, but they will be neither so nu-
  every exporters books were filled with orders in advance. The spinner who buys cotton ahead must sell yarn ahead It he does not buy cotton ahead he can not sell yarn ahead And if there is no yarn sold ahead the man who has raw cotton to sell must wait until the mill secures an order for yarn and places an order for raw cotton with some American exporter.
 Neither yarns nor raw cotton are now being sold for fall and winter delivery.
 The past winter the strength of the spot market was made possible not by holding cotton back, but by the fact that the mills had sold yarn ahead and ex- porters had sold actual cotton ahead, thereby supplying buyers whose engage ments forced them to buy raw cotton from farmers who were not at all anxious to sell. Hence the strength.
 The market closed very steady, with prices net Il to 25 points higher. Receipts at the ports today 9362 bales, against S602 last week and S146 last year. For the week 5000, against 50,906 last week and 52, ,4S5 last year.
 Today's receipts at New Orleans 1891, against 627 last year. and at Houston 431, against 2443 last year.