New-York tribune., 1920-04-22
Decline on Market
row s as Selling
Pressure Continues
Decentralization in Volatile
Issues; Liberty Bonds and
Other Investment Secur-
tiles Are Sold Heavily

|. Speculative security values, giving
way before the pressure Of insistent
offerings, yesterday suffered quite the
worst setback since the break in Feb
ruary. The fresh decline, coming af-
ter two days of steadily falling prices
and at stage where the trading ele-
ment had looked confidently for some
sort of reaction, if only because of
technical considerations, created an
atmosphere of extreme bearishness,
causing increased tension in market
circles.
Tho selling in the afternoon when
the movement reached its height ap-
peared to be of such an. urgent char
acter in numerous of the volatile issues
as to cause decentralization. There
were times in the closing hour when
stocks were thrown overheard in utter
disregard of values which threw the
market into extreme confusion. In
fact, it looked at one stage as If the
market had gotten completely out of
hand so violent were the declines.
One of the chief elements in the
market situation was the utter lack of
anything definite or tangible in the
way of news developments which
would adequately explain the sudden
desire on the part of stock market
traders to liquidate their holdings
While the news from Japan has been
more or less disquieting, developments
in that quarter, in the opinion of many
observers of market conditions, have
not been of sufficient direct influence
here to account for the remarkable re-
versal in the price trend since the be-
ginning of the week. The feeling in
banking circles yesterday was that the
market in its decline is anticipating
something of an unfavorable character
which is yet to develop In the news.
Speculative pools organized for the
express purpose of distributing
stocks bought at much lower prices to
the public, which was expected to come
into the market on a large scale, have
undoubtedly suffered severely from the
sharp break in prices since Monday.
Probably part of the forced off fgerings
of industrial specialties has come from
such pools, which as result of the
downward movement in prices have
found it impossible to continue their
operations.
1T was apparent yesterday that the
market had reached a stage in the de-
cline where not only were weak mar
gin accounts being forced out, but,
what was more important, holders of
investment securities were being
frightened into selling. This re-
necteu IN the movement in prices of
United States Liberty Loan and Vic
tory note issues and railroad Sc
curities, where declines were large.
The drop in the government bonds was
one of the sensational developments in
the days financial markets, losses of
to 21s points being registered in
some of the Representative issues.
These bonds have been weak ever
since it was recognized that the in
vestment market was undergoing an
important change due to the advance
IN interest rates to new level. If the
truth were known it would probably be
found that the same factor has been
an important influence in the stock
market.
At the bottom prices reached by
stocks Yesterday many issues like
Baldwin Locomotive, Stromberg Car
buretor, American WoolLen, General
Motors and Crucible Steel showed de-
clines of Is to 40 points under the
high levels of few days ago, when
the pools were operating. Execution
OF stop loss orders hastened the de-
cline. One or two stocks resisted the
declining movement yesterday, notably
Shell Transport & Trading, Royal
Dutch, and Lackawanna Steel.