The Washington herald., 1916-12-27
In the World Of Finance and Trade
WALL STREET UNMOVED
BY CHATTER FOR PEACE
crucible Steel Goes Up Five Points.
= War Shares Lead Market.

CBy the International News service')
New York. Dec. 2s.-Today's market
was based on the belief that wall
Streets discounting Of peace has oeen
premature. Everything that happeneo
over the holiday fitted In with this
assumption. The newspaper dispatches
from all the capitals Of Europe SOUND
ed a note Of protest against any peace
agitation at this time. They MADE II
plain that the allied government
would reply to the communication OF
the President Of the United States with
n polite dsclination to state their
terms until Germany had stated hers.
Then came the reply note from TINS
central powers in which there was the
expected suggestion that represents
tives of the bslligerent nations get TO-
Eether for an immediate conferences
but without any answer on the criti
cal question, which is, what terms OF
settlement Berlin would be willing 10
accept.
Think In War Terms.
Consequently Wall street. which had
been thinking for the past two weeks
i'm terms of peace, began to think again
in terms of war The war shares with
the oils were the leaders Of the mar
ket Crucible Steel went up points
on an antonishingly small volume OF
transactions American locomotive,
Baldwin, Industrial Alcohol and the
rest quickly falling into the line oil
shares were well bought. There are
reasons to believe that the same spe-
culative crowd which made such q
killing in the early stages Of the Beth
Iehem Steel pool. have gone into Crucl-
BILE Steel
No group of stocks has come down
more from their top and been more thor
oughIy nquidated than the war indus
trials. The outside speculative element
scared to. death of peace, has been driven
out of tbs group more completely than
out Of anything else in the list Hence
operations for the rise were conducted
earnestly, People began to think once
again about American Locomotive com
mon, earning at the rate of 80 snare
on top of its earnings of $6 last year
Steel common was well bought through
out the day. but in q stock so widely
held recovery Is not as rapid as couIo
in other directions. There Is always
lot of leftover liquidation to be reck-
oned with This Is true also Of the cop
per group. These impedirnents IN the
technical situation are, however, OF COM
paratively slight consequences besides
the great strength of the trade position.
both in copper and in steel
Concessions in Prices.
What concessions in prices which had
been made In the metal market Of tho
last week have not been significant be-
cause they have been made only on what
are called odd lots 1t Is just as true as
1t ever was that the leading copper and
steel producers have the major part OF
their output sold six months ahead and
are making NO concessions from the high
est level Of prices. Some very well-in-
formed people claim to know that the
negotiations for a settlement Of the labor
question will result in a compromise
which will give labor a nine-hour day.
In return for this the railway heads will
call of their injunction proceedings and
the Adamson law will become a dead
letter.
1t was very significant that the call
money range should have been on to
} 1-2 per cent in face Of the huge cor
poration demands that must be financed
over the first Of the year. This was
practical evidenc that. from a banking
point of view. the shake-out of stocks
has been complete. At no time has there
been any question OF a real deficiency of
money supplies.