New-York tribune., 1920-07-20
! Wall Street i'm
Gloomy Mood as
| Market Declines
Bear Traders Active on Sell
ing Side. Although Total
Business Is Not Large;
Unfavorable Factors

Stocks made rather heavy weather of
it. yesterday at the beginning of the
new week and the professional short
sellers had things more or less their
own way throughout the exchange ses-
-sion. The weight of unfavorable news de-
velopments over Sunday more than
balanced the good, or at least the
Street thought so, supplying the bear
traders, flushed with their recent sue
cess in depressing values, with plenty
of arguments for selling stocks. The
professional bears we're again respon-
sible In large measure for the course
taken by prices. They did not bring
aggregated less than 100000 shares.
Moreover the market displayed moder
ate rallying tendencies in the after
noon, suggesting an oversold condition
in the case of many of the industrial
fav orites.
There were two outstanding features
of the day in the Street. One was the
announcement that the Pennsylvania
Railroad, in pursuance of a policy of
to lay off 10000 to $4,000 employees. The
other was the weakness of the foreign
exchanges. Both figured prominently in
financial discussions. The drastic action
of the Pennsylvania management. on the
eve of the announcement of the award
of the Railway Labor Board, which is
due to be handed down some time to-
day is said to have been under con-
sideration for several weeks, and is ap-
parently forced by the bad showing the
road has been making of late. The
effect it will have upon labor in general
will be, watched with great interest.
The Street talked. yesterday of a pos
sible upheaval of railway labor as a
result of the wage award to be handed
down to-day, which, it has been ru-
mored, will not be satisfactory to the
workers.. The financial community was
in *.blue Monday" sort of mood
and it's nerves were easily played upon.
This helped the bears in their selling
campaign.
The weakness in the foreign ex-
changes, with sterling especially, under
pressure, was a matter of much COM
ment, although it was rather to be
expected. This is a season of the year
when. normally the export movement
is heavy. At present wheat shipments
to Europe are rapidly increasing and
days of the current month the United
States exported to the United King
dom and the Continent two and one-half
times as much wheat as in the cor
responding period of 1919. Up to this
time the outward movement of wheat
exports had not been running as heavy
as year ago because of a combination
of factors, including an abnormal ex-
change position and deferment of pur-
chases in hopes of lower prices. The
increasing demand since the beginning
OF the month has naturally brought in
much larger offerings of exchange bills,
with the result that rates on Europe
have been working steadily lower.
Sterling exchange yesterday showed a
decline, of close to cents in the pound
from the final quotations on Saturday
and was at the lowest level since the
middle of May.
Stocks were subjected to selling
pressure almost from the outset. Steel
shares, motors, tire issues and oils
We're taken up in rapid succession and
sold vigorously with resultant sharp
declines. Railway equipment shares act
ed better than the general run of the in
dustrlals. Around the middle of the
day the pressure lightened somewhat
and IN the afternoon, when call money
was offered at 8 per cent, a reduction
of l per cent from the opening and
renewal rate, fairly good rally set
IN which closed the market up from
the early lows. But at that, most of
the representative shares registered
net losses. Steel common got down to
90H2 on the forenoon break and closed
at 91B.