The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-05-16
GENERAL DULLNESS
 IN STOCK MARKET Politics Fail to Excite Un- usual Interest-Further
 Inside Liquidation

New York, May 15.-Tn most of it's salient features today,s stock market
 was repetition of the preceding day.
 There was the same irnmoderates bid
 ding up of the hard coal shares, Cana dian Pacific and score or more of secondary or low priced specialties, with alternate recessions, recoveries and
 periods of dullness. The movement
 represented little more than the opera
 tions of the professional element and
 there was further evidence of inside
 liquidation, especially in the more prominent speculative stocks. This lat
 ter condition was more apparent with every recurrent rally and gave color to
 the belief that the interests instrument
 tai in the recent advance were the more disposed to leave the market to it's own devices.
 The opening saw the usual number of wide" or decided gains. Lchigh Val ley, American Sugar, international Pa per rreferred and Interborough-M Metro politan preferred rising a point or over with virtually no declines. Before the end of the first half hour, however,
 
 pletely obliterated and by noon the average level of prices was on parity with or under the lowest of the pre- eious day. Soon after midday another buying movement in Lehigh Valley and Reading restored a large part of the easly losses and added to the gains registered by the obscure specialties, while Canadian Pacific went to 269, a
 
 and private advices," absolutely noth- ! ing developed. to explain the rise in Canadian PaciT, but the small floating supply of the stock in this market, to- Eether with the manipulative tactics of certain traders, were assumed to be back of the rise.
 In the last hour other dormant spe- cialties were taken up, while the usual leaders manifested fresh irregulariry. The market settled down to general dullness, surface conditions denoting in- creased conservatism on the part of the traders. with an utter absence of any thing suggesting public interest. Aside from a sudden two point rise in Illi- nois Central, which helped bring that stock out of it's extreme depression of the previous week. the closing was moderately active with mixture of gains and losses. Some idea of the markets unusual character may be gained from the fact that dealings in some stocks relatively unknown a few weeks ago at times exceeded those in such former favorite as Union Pa cific
 London bought about 25.000 shares here, principally United States Steel, and sold some Amalgamated Copper and Lehigh Valley.
 The political situation as disclosed in the California primaries failed to ex- cite more than casual interest. The financial community seems to be pay ing little attention to the hearings af- fecting the United States Steel corpora tion and the American Sugar company, but it Is not denied that both may be- come factors of market importance. Dividends presumably for the last quarter were declared by the Standard |rsil company of New York and the Stan dard Oil company of New Jersey at the ate respectively of s6 and $5 per share. The improved state of the copper trade during the past year is shown in the report of the Anaconda Copper Mining company, controlled by Amalgamated. which gives earnings of 7.42 per cent on it's increased capacity, compared with 5.42 per cent in 1910, while sales increased by almost $S,000.000. The bond market was inclined to ease off at first but hardened later. Total sales, par value, amounted to s2,6S2, ,000. United States government bonds un- changed on call.