The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-01-01
AN EvENTFUL YEAR
 IN STOCK MARKET Close, However, Was Without
 eFature IRON AND, STEEL TRADE Judge Gary Has Called Another Love Feast Banquet of All Producers for January 1-Review
 of Year
IRON AND, STEEL TRADE
By w. G. NICHOLAS

By w. G. NICHOLAS
 New York, December 3l l-(special. )-The
 last week of the year in the stock market
 passes uneventfully. This is about as everybody had expected The big. broad situation is deadlocked and within the scope of that general description there
 are number of miner deadlocks, each important in itself, and all of them more
 or less correlated. The opinion is gain ing ground that there will have to be wholesale breaking up of these dead locks before marked and permanent inn proyement can be hoped for.
 Take the iron and steel industry. as an illustration. Consumers have been hold ing off for year or more and during that time production has fallen away
 nearly 50 per cent. Prices have been re-
 duced in many places and now open threats are heard of a blood raw cam
 paign for business on the part of many
 independents, who at the present time
 are doing little or nothing. The attitude
 of these Independents is expressed in the
 statement made by one of the strongest of them to the writer that they would
 wait for business until about the 18th of
 January and then if 1t did not come to
 them they would go after 1t and cut
 prices until they found market for their
 products. Judge Gary has called another
 one of those love-feast banquets of his
 for January Il and every man who owns
 mill or blast furnace in the United
 States has been asked to attend. These
 big eats under the auspices of Judge
 Gary are quite the popular thing. It
 gives the provincial iron manufacturer
 the chance of his life to put his feet un-
 der the same mahogany with J. Pierpont
 Morgan G. W. Perkins, H. c. Prick and
 other eminent lights of finance and in-
 dustry. Heretofore the conferences
 which attend these various banquets
 have been productive of much good feel
 ing. It is the hope of the big people of the industry that the one scheduled for
 January Il may avert the threatened
 breakup. At best 1t is a forlorn hope. Consumers do not believe it will be hu- manly possible to longer check the opera tion of natural trade laws.
 Practically the same conditions exist in the woolen and cotton trades and in cop per as in iron and steel And then there
 is the deadlock resulting from the delay
 in getting action on the application of railroads for consent to raise rates. And back of that stll Is the looked for de- cision by the supreme court in the Stand ard Oil and Tobacco trust cases. The lat ter, however. is in a class by itself, and while regarded as of paramount import ance, for the guidance of corporate or ganization is not likely to be handed down until something happens good and plenty with the several pending dead locks referred to. Meantime there Is no present pressure of stocks on the mar l1et and there is certainly no urgent dis position 10 buy in quantity. Everybody appears to be satisfied to let matters rest about as they are for the time being.
 As a r''e, people do not care much for reviews of retrospection, but at this | time I believe little of 1t would be help | ful In forming judgment as to the future and I will depart from my usual custom and devote the remainder of the space allotted to this letter with brief story of 1910 The stock market has been a most unsatisfactory proposition through | out the entire year. The trend of prices has been downward and although the drift has been interrupted by two or three important recoveries, the closing range shows a net average loss of about 20 points in the railroad list and IS points in the industrial list The prices during the last days of the year are better than the inside figures of last July by about z points In both divisions of the market railroads and industrials. These figures are taken from the tables of averages laboriously prepared and kept up by Av,or pio prif hn fo11 c1,< that in January the high price of railroad
 stocks was s1.30, and that July 26 a low
 level of S106 had been reached. The av-
 craze at the end of the year Is SIS. In
 January the high price of industrial
 stocks was $9S. On July 26 the price was
 $7S.5O and at this writing 1t Is sSl. This
 little recital in statistics is the compressed story of the year..
 The year 1910 started off with the hopes of everybody keyed up to high pitch. It was going to be the banner year. In the iron and steel industry (which. by the way, has maintained its standing as an accurate barometer of general bus mess and stock market tendencies) 99 men in 100 looked forward with the utmost confidence to a long period of immense and bulging prosperity. The mills of the country were producing at rate of 31,- 100000 tons of pig iron and estimates of the 1910 earnings for the United States Steel Corporation were variousy placed at $1s5, 900 GOO to 20o.0O00OO. What has happened to knock this hopeful pro- gramme In the head probably no ten peo- pie in the trade wil lagree. The result, however. is that production is now down to 22,0O0000 tons year, which is in ex-
 cess of consumption. stores of pig hay ing piled up to the extent of probably | 100000 tons. A year ago new plants and additions to old plants were being con- structed in all sections and in all the | iron and steel districts. Work on these has been in large part suspended or sealed down and capacity now in opera | ton does not exceed 50 per cent. Con sumers have drifted into condition of mind in which they think they cannot | lose by waiting to put in orders. Strong