The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-02-01
SLOW PROGRESS
 IN STOCK MARKET Professionals Are Disappointed In Financial Conditions TRADING IS VERY ACTIVE Stocks Are on a Solid Basis, But the Upward Movement Is Too Slow
 for the General Run of
 Dealers.
TRADING IS VERY ACTIVE

New York, January S1.-The fitful and irregular movement of prices of stocks in last weeks market, with the dominant tendency downwards, gave fair index of the conflicting and doubtful speeula- tive sentiment with the undertone lean ing to the side of depression. The prin- cipal contesting factors at work were found in the plentiful and even redund- ant money supplies on the one side and the reports of backward trade conditions, of which the plethoric money at the re- serve centers was in itself a result. or the trade outlook it is to be said that the stock market view is not so much in fear of a retrogression as it is of disappointment in the rate of progress sion
 High hopes of the quick restoration of the countrys industrial and commercial activity were inferred in the extensive and long continued rise in the stock market. Bankers and lenders of money find difficulty in finding employment for the great accumulations of money de- posted in their hands and this gives small inducement for conversion of se- curities holdings into money. This side of the situation is efficacious in prompt ing broad and constant demand for bonds of fixed interest return ana secured by mortgage. New issues by railroad and industrial corporations follow each other in constant succession and the sale to bankers is announced simultaneously often with the disposal of the whole issue to second hands.
 Very large transactions in existing is sues at the stock market are going on also day after day. large speculative element is perceptble in this activity in heavy proportion of the dealings in bonds affected by transfer of control of the properties to stronger hands or by pros pective emergency from threats of bank ruptcy or from the receiverships by req son of the improved financial situation. This ready supply of additional capital In response to corporation requirements gives excellent promise of resumption of outlay suspended during the financial de- pression although a modifying circum- stance in the extensive refunding going on of short term obligations incurred onerous terms during the monetary crisis
 
 not yet begun to flow into active con sumptive demand on scale to effect any notable revival of the great industries, according to the most reliable signs. The iron and steel trade particularly is dis appointing in the amount of business coming to hand. The report of the United States Steel corporation for the Deeem- Der quarter gave a slight decline in net earnings from the previous quarter, and but a slight increase in unified orders on hand compared with the end of the preceding quarter. Of the January sit uation in the trade the Iron Age asserts that there 'is keen disappointment at the way in which new business has fiattened out"
 Reports of railroad net earnings for December reveal the source of much of this disappointment not in the radical cuts in expenses which are being made by them nor the striking improvement of their net return of profits, but to the deprivation of the industries supplying materials. In the copper trade similar conditions exist. the large rate of pro duction outrunning the present consump- tive demands with accumulation of stocks and a yielding tendency of prices.
 The sale of a dominant interest in the Chesapeake and Ohio to Edwin Hawley and associates was taken to represent shifting of resources realized from the sale of Colorado and Southern to the Burlington F. H. Harrimans entry to the New York Central directorate con- firmed a report long prevalent, and of former speculative Influence, leaving room for reaction after the event. The with drawal of Paris from competition for gold in the London market early in the week was heralded as marking the end of the long continued policy of the Bank of France in accumulation of gold Signs of a revival of that demand during the week and the renewed signs of disturb ances in the Balkans were of disturbing effect on financial markets. The New York money market was indifferent to the evidence of a coming movement of cold from New York to London.