The morning journal-courier., 1908-06-05
WALL STREET NOTES
Stocks, Demoralized at Open ing, Rally Moderately and
 Break Sharply at Close.
READING EXTREMELY WEAK
Reduction in Bar Steel of Effect in In- duclng bquldation--Stecl
 Selling Small.

r''''@'' Stocks were demoralized at the opening, with lossees of 3-4 to 1 point tn leading issues Union Pacific was 84 dcNn at 14S, and Reeadlng 2 down at 114 S-S, United States Steel acmmon opened IA lower at 3s, Un- ter supporting orders stocks ralliad moderately during the first half hor. out arlound II o'clock heavy selling orders came in and tho market plung- ad downward again, with Union Pa aiis Reading, s. Paul and Amerl- can Smelling weak features Much of tho selling of Reading and Init d States Steel came from Pennsyl- rania. which was regarded as slgnih 'ant Promptly at 215 o'clock, as if oy preconcerted signal stocks began 10 break sharply. and they were in ] state of collapse within a quarter If an hour with many thousand share ots coming out United States Steel broke to S6 3-i by 2:30 o'clock. m sales ranging from 4,OoO to 5000 1lldlGHf lHlpH Y dClIlI attlUeU IO i45 IS in the same time. and Read lng sold below 112. On the way down hundreds of speculative accounts were sacrificed. on "stop-loss orders" which meant exhausted margins. Trading on the way down was very ac- tive throughout the list The mar ket closed very weak. around the lowest.
 In the past month 4,5o0.o0o shares of Union Pacific have been dealt in. or about two and a half times the total common shares outstanding. This trading has been over price fanLc of about 15 points. The move ment started at 136 and culminated at l51 3-s with 8 decline from that price to 13s 3s. The enormouss vol. ume of transactions indicates large accumulation of stock. but also heavy distribution of it. The largest daily transactions have occurred when tho stock was declining.
 Readings extreme weakness dur Ing the first part of the day was partly due to the proposed closing down of many of its collieries with rumors of smaller business. The pendency Of .he suit against tho anthracite rail tcads under tho Hepburn law also probably induced some selling, on :he theory that the stock was porh IDS high enough, under existing uncer- .airties. Many. of tho sales represent closing out of speculative holdings
 English stockholders are disturbed over the poor statements of earnings made by the Canadian Pacific and have been selling moderately The month of May showed gross de- crease of $1,551 ,000. For the eleven months of the fiscal year, however, the gross has Increased $455000.
 The action of United States Steel shares was closely watched because n the opinion of many, these stocks would determine the trend of the stock market The reduction In the price of steel bars and q growing belief that more reductions in other lines would follow unquestionably had a strong influence on the stock market and induced such liquidation as oc- aurred to-day Considering these conclusions, the wonder is that the selling of United States Steel stocks was a. small as 1t was Some had predicted very heavy liquidation. IF to midday the sales of United States Steel common were only 10000 shares with ar extreme decline up to that time of 1-8 points to 37 1-2, or . points below the recent top price ot S9 1-S.