The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-01-23
WEAK ONES OUT OF THE S7tCK MARKET Liquidation of Recent Date Was Heavier Than Usual VIEW IS MORE CHEERFUL All the While the Market Was Shaken Up News of Industrial Prog
 ress Was Freely Cir
 oulated.
VIEW IS MORE CHEERFUL
BY w. G. NICHOLAS.


 New York. January 22.-( Special )-The stock market having been duly shaken down and a lot of weak ones eliminated. It Is now due to begin another advance. There Is not that open manifestation of apsorpton of stocks by important inter- ests which speculative bulls would like to see, but there has nevertheless been substantial buying of the investment kind by miscellaneous people and good deal of stuff has undoubtedly found permanent lodgment during the later phases of the decline. This kind of buying is the be- ginning of the hardening process-the building of good foundation upon which conservative investors can proceed with confidence.
 Tn the light of recent events 1t Is now to be seen that liquidation during the late autumn and early winter was heav- Ter than commonly estimated. Profit talk ing and distribution was on very large scale. It was sufficient 10 overload the market with stocks of all kinds, and there has been difficulty in digesting the oyersupply The shrinkage in quotations has been important all along the line. It has amounted to loss of 32 points In New York Central, 80 in Pennsylvania, 30 in Union Pacific, 20 in St. Paul, Is in Reading and 10 in Southern Pacific, ev- erything breaking on an average 10 to 15 points. with very few exceptions
 In the industrial list Steel back-tracked 13 points, Colorado Fuel and Iron Il points, American Car Foundry 12 Amer lean Locomotive 1872, Shelters IA. Amal- gamated Copper 15. This decline was enough to weed out lot of pyramiders who neglected to take advantage of the high prices and bank their profits The public delayed getting Into stocks in wholesale way until the big insiders and the banking interests began the serious work of unloading. This period of nuui- dation may be said to have commenced about the time it became generally known that MT. Hartman was fatally i'll and kept on steadily for two months thereafter, the public meantime buying on a great scale and refusing to believe that the situation warranted grave reac- tion In prices.
 Simultaneously with the gigantic sell ing for inside account the newspapers were fed with glowing accounts of indus trial and business activity. During the last six weeks very little bullish news has been heard along these familiar lines, yet as a matter of fact the general busi- ness situation is in highly satisfactory state and outside of Wall street there Is very little to complain of. Of course that part of the public which came into stocks at high prices has lost money and the effect of this loss will probably be felt more or less in outside enterprises. These losses, however. are not thought to be bad enough to- involve serious conse- quences upon the situation as a whole.
 Bull news which is again getting into circulation, begins to attract notice in influential quarters. Wall street has been so busy looking at the scenery through smoked glasses that 1t has had no time to consider cheerful information. A spirit of pessimism has possessed the whole stock exchange and permeated It's sphere of influence.
 The burden of talk was that the whole country was on the verge of perdition that the interests" were due for another terrible scourging at the hands of the politicians; that statements of prosperity were premature and exaggerated; that railroads were about to be weighted down under the oppression of their mill lion or. more workmen demanding more wages; that the high cost of living Is crushing the life out of the masses, and that everything was in a very bad state All of this had It's effect on the stock market, including renewed liquidation. and breeding mild panic.
 All the while the country at large was going ahead in the even tenor of its way and building up. The money conditions were generally working into more fa- vorable state, and no real danger men aced any important community or division of the population.
 A few spectators in stocks and cotton were crippled or put out of business, but that is about as far as the damage seems to have gone. The time now ap- | pears to have arrived for shift in the scene and for the taking of a more l cheerful view.
 | The Columbus and Hooking Coal and | Iron incident was the sensation of the ! week and gave the gossips plenty to talk about. Contrary to the accepted view