Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-01-19
LOOKS FOR DECISION
Wall Street Expects Rate Case
Opinion Tomorrow.
ACTIVITY ON BEAR SIDE
Disposition Of Aggressive Traders to
Rush Quotations During Week.
EXPECT TARIFF REVISION
Neither Spectator Nor Investor Is
Alarmed, However, Over
the Outcome.
ACTIVITY ON BEAR SIDE
EXPECT TARIFF REVISION
BY 81. ALLOWAY.

BY n. ALLOWAY.
NEW YORK. January 1S-Wan street
~ eApectant-confident-t history
making United States Supreme Court de-
| cision will be handed down Monday The
so-styled Minnesota rate case is what the
prophets and oracles have in mind. If, as
the vision seers have it, this decision
should provide the way for traffic charge
advances. for substantial increase in rail-
way earnings. there is soundness in the
rosy forecasts current. But almost uni
form precedents known to Wall street
make 1t trifie risky to count upon any
information that effects to tell in ad-
vance what the United States Supreme
Court is going to do
| On two or three occasions during the
week there have been manifestations of
disposition upon the part of aggressive
traders to rush quotations. For the most
part this has been activity upon the bear
side, intended to lower quotations. 1t
can hardly be claimed by any champion,
however. that any substantial success has
been attained. Following Mr.. Wilson
Chicago speech expressions of pesSimism
became very much the stock exchange
fashion; and the immediate sequel was
weakening in security prices. But the
movement had little force. seemed to have
the first exhibit of market protest quota
tions fell into their normal numbness vir-
ltually recovering all that had been lost.
Understood in Wall Street.
To the man outside of Wall street. and
without intimate relations in important
financial quarters. there can be as yet
little commensurate information as to
the feelings and the expressions of lead
ers" challenged by the Wilson declara-
tions. Wall street had been confidently
expecting that the new President was to
be cOnventiOnally inane. Certainly in no
quarter was there expectation that he
would come out with def SO savagely
specific as is embraced in the averment
that the incoming administration is to
start out upon the platform that the
banking interests of this country are not
under indictment merely, but are already
convicted.
AS rhetoric the outburst is robut, rhyth-
mic. picturesque. AS an averment in
commonplace business measurement it
sounds nightly like declaration of war
The why and wherefore of it Wall street
persists that 1t cannot comprehend
Forthwith we have chOruses of spiteful
things said against MIR. Wilson; but so
far excited protests scarcely need be
taken seriously. Anyhow, investors of
the country are not upset. There is no
selling of standard stocks bonds trace
able to actual owners. Liquidation
transactions are almost exclusively rec
ognized as coming from speculative quar-
ters where gentlemen sell not what they
own but what they hope later to be able
to buy back on a lower level-"short
sales, on account of which stocks de-
livered to buyers have to be borrowed
by the sellers.
Difference in Short Selling.
What may in this connection be re-
| o. ia hat ha
seller of today is not at all the tradi-
tional short seller of large resources and
reckless bravery; that type of short seller
went out of Wall street fashion when
Woerishoffer and Travers and Addison
Cammack died. AS compared with the
bear captains of historic days. the pres
emit pessimistic plungers are so puny as
to- be comic. What they sell In morning
raids they are hysteric over If they can
not on the afternoon of the same day
cover at a profit. They hail themselves
as tremendous operators; they are only
teasers. And what is recorded on the
stock exchange this week is entertain
ingly illustrative.
II there is to be any real market upset
the cause must be far superior to any
thing that our present professional bear
spectators have capacity for. Till the
public sells-or till there be some sign
that masters in the banking world are
ready to 1iquidate-bear campaigning
will amount to little.
May Indicate Unloading.
What alert watchers of the market
will be on the qui vive for will be to
discern If at any time it is possible to
learn of any change in the attitude of
those who foremost in high finance
1t is to be acknowledged even by those
who are most confident of the markets
inherent strength and staying quality
that some substantial transactions lately
made openly by bear traders may be
traceable to orders that originated in
very different quarters, may even repre-
sent quiet unloading by exceptionally
Important interests. One suggestive straw
upon the tide was d couple OF days ago
disclosed in telephone message to a
conspicuous brokerage firm, substantial
~ as follows: You are borrowing for
my account 300 shares of steel trust
common stock and You send me word
that have the opportunity now to cover
it at profit. as the price is down I
don't want to cover. l am sending YOU
my own stock for delivery
| This may be relatively inconsequen-
tial transaction but it is interesting at
least in view of the fact that the firm
that made the sale, one of the most
prominent upon the stock exchange was
itself sure that the order it had exc
cuted was merely a speculative short
SALE and not (what now it turns out to
| DeD Tie marketing OF STOCK already own
ed by the customer. The incident indi-
Gates. at any rate. that most theories
as to what this. that or the other per-
son does in Wall street partake largely
of guesswork.
Any worth while forecast as to what
the market in its present petty feverish
mood may develop into must depend upon
what is really done by big people" who
actually own stocks-what they really
do, not what Wall street oracles may
| guess they are doing.
Not Alarmed About Revision.
1t is difficult to awaken the interest of
anybody in the financial district in the
matter of tariff revision, neither specu-
lator nor investor being inclined to the
, view that anything very grave is going
to develop. however aggressive may be
the opening periods of President Wilson's
special Congress session. What is i'm
pressed upon independent observers is
the obvious fact that they who are for a
\ lower tariff have far and away outgen-
II eraled the representatives Of interests de-
string the continuance of the present
III Sto To tbo