The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-12-27
No Lack of Animation During
 Christmas Week
MONEY IS PLENTIFUL
Big Spectators Resent Energy of Bears and Jump Back Into the Market With Both Feet-1eoe
 Promises Good.
By w. G. NICHOLAS.

New York, December Especial. )-No complaint can be made of lack of anfma- ton in the stock market during the Christmas week The weakness which developed the latter part of the week be- fore continued into the beginning of trad ing this week and then there came a sud den change. The big people who had been standing aside and letting the bears have an inning came to life all at once. It had been their programme to stand aside and let the market alone during the last half of December and give the banks and trust companies a chance to finance the end of the year requirements without any straln on their resources. 1t was discoN- cred, however, that this task could be performed very much more easily than had been anticipated. Instead of there being a stringency in the money market abundance and comparative ease was the situation.
 Furthermore, the bear party, under the leadership of hard hitting operators like Brandt Walker and Livermore the Bos- ton boy wonder, took what the market masters looked upon a mean advant- age of this withdrawal of support. They jumped on the market viciously and not only hammered prices down. but filled the air with all kinds of disturbing rumors They even revived sinister talk of certain captains of industry and great merchants being in trouble.
 They very cleverly used the names Of men who had been tided over during the stress of last winter and who were de scribed as having difficulty in securing extensions. All of which, it may be said here in parenthesis, was a purely i'm aginary state of affairs, so far as can be learned. Individuals and corporations able
 FnlI and H4riTl ter should have no especial trouble in get ting through now and as a matter of fact no important disturbance or inabii- tv is diseoverable. None the less these old rumors and stories served bearish purpose to help along a stock market de- cline They also served to arouse the indignation of great capitalists who had been in charge of the bull campaign In stocks ever since last spring. It was, therefore the easiest thing in the world for this element to make demonstra- ton. They came into the market the first of the week and with unlimited buy ing orders affected a quick transforma- ton.
 The bears who had been in high feather and had been organizing their accounts with reckless abandon, awoke to a i've ly- consciousness that they had been caught in a trap. They immediately be- gan to climb for safety. Notoriously frightened bears are the biggest bulls They want the stock when they want IL and they do not stop to consider the cost They run like a drove of stampeded cattle before a prairie fire. They saw what they had hopefully regarded as a tri- umphant campaign turned into ignomin- ious rout in an hour.
 They were not given any chance to get in on the soft spots. There were no sort sno+s Tn some instances almost the en- fire loss made on the sharp reaction of last week or so was recovered. This did not apply to such stocks as smelters but the general list experienced a very pow erful uplift and it was more evenly dis tributed than is usually the case. The leaders spread their orders all over the floor.