Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1920-07-28
MARKET ERRAT|C;;
TRADING IS ACTIVE
Varied Views on Steel Earn.
ings-Bears Press for
Advantage.
BY STUART p. WEST.

]
| poration.
This report was Disappointing how
| ever only because the speculativ
| community has based it's estimates
| upon the earnings of the independents
| ana consequently had figured too
| high. In themselves the Steel Corpor-
| alton results for the three months
! ended June 30 are quite satisfactory.
The main thing is that just as in the
| case of Republic Steel and Lacka-
| wanna the June earnings were much
| better than those of the two preced-
! ing months.
| II was in June the fuel shortage
| began TO make its effects very keenly
| fett, and the fact that the steel com
pany earnings instead of falling off
Gated that the troubles with coal and
transportation have not done the
da mage to the steel business that had
been commonly assumed
1t is very hard to reconcile the June
steel earnings with the statements
made from week to week by the iron
trade journals and emphasized by the
Iron Age today that the railroad sit
uation has forced the curtailment of
production and along with the fuel
scarcity threatens to compel the shut
down of more mills and furnaces. 1t
may be. of course, that the July earn
ingS will reflect these conditions as
they were not reflected last month.
but still the iron trade reports dur
ing the greater part of last month
tainly gave the impression that the
steel companies were losing ground.
steel Under Pressure.
Steel common within the first few
minutes lost over a point and soon
after got down close to yesterdays
low. This checked the recovery in
he general list and brought an ir-
regular decline.
Bearish operators were very active
searching for weak spots among special
| issues and finding a good many of them.
Some of the motors, the low priced
oils, the shipping stocks and the su-
gsrs were particularly sensitive under
attack.
on the other hand the decline was
Quite a number of stocks offered fair
resistance and the volume of bust
ness fell off where prices went lower
/ Selling of General Motors.
There was much conjecture today re-
| garding the source of yesterdays heavy
! sellin in General Motors.
| A single brokerage firm was offering
| the stock all day and sold in all from
80 900 to $1,000 shares. Inquiry was
made of Wilmington, Del. to see if any
| light could be thrown upon the attitude
! of the du Pont-Durant crowd. The re-
ply came back that these interests had
| been buyers and not sellers.
| One of the market letters this morning
! contain the following reference to
| General Motors THE buying of General
Motors, when an active broker sold
! 5000 shares yesterday. looked good.
The selling looked like underwriting
stock" General Motors did consider
a he
day, but the same broker who had the
big order yesterday again appeared as
! the seller and his offerings checked the
recovery.
Two Views of Conditions.
There was wide divergence of opin-
ion today regarding the market out
look on the part of those who sent out
adviceS to brokerage clients Two
opinions Numerically opposed to
each other are quoted One wire struck
a very optimistic note.
1t said: Wall street is filled with
gloom without good reason. A clique
of bears was responsible for the break.
Next week the same clique will prob
ably see great signs of prosperity in
the country, and you will hear how
cheap stocks are. We think they are
cheap now and that they ought to be
bought now. The only big bear argu-
ment a hand is the money tightness "
set forth by house which has taken
Il bearish attitude: You can ignore
rallies in stocks. The trend is down
ward until we have had sufficient re-
adjustment of the money situation.
Use these rallies for sales. We see on
every hand a showdown in industry
particularly in lines like leather and
wool. which experienced high degree
of prosperity during the war, also in
most other lines. because of railroad
congestion which shows no signs of
aba tement."
Bond Market.
Generally speaking there was little
change in bond prices today. One of
the few exceptions to the stationary
tendency of the market was the Bel
gan 7i2sd which. continuing their de-
cline, got down to SO, at which figure
they showed a loss of nearly two points
from their top. This drop was the re-
suit of profit taking and had no other
significance Japanese gold IS were
ton lower at 1929.
Liberty bonds barely varied at all
from yesterdays final The fourth
4As held slightly above IS. The
equipment division was irregular
Chicago and Northwesterns were a
shade under par
1t now appears that the syndicate
which underworld the SIS 900, 900 issue
of Canadian railway per cent notes
wound up its affairs in the latter part
of June, the bonds all having been
sold. While the issue was success
fully placed there has not been the
same demand for the Canadian notes
after the syndicate dissolution that
there has been for most of the recent
American issues. This is shown by
the fact that the prevailing bid is
only 81, as against 90, the issue price.
Curb Market Heavy.
Heaviness continued on the curb
market. although the pressure was
not as great as in the previous ses-
sion. 1t was also noted that the
supply from outside interests was less
| urgent. indicating that forced liqui-
dation had ended for the time being
at least. Transactions were COM
parativeIy large.
There was moderate activity in the
| oil list MaracaibO was offered free
| ly and recorded decline of several
| points.
Simms Petroleum was about steady.
; Skeily Oil showed an easier tendency.
| National Oil OF New Jersey was again
| active and higher.
| Mining shares continued fairly ac-
| tive, but price movements were mar
| row. Bonds were quiet and steady.
Trading SiacLens.
II was the Iessening OF trading ac-
tivity that mainly distinguished to-
days operations from those of yester-
day. When prices went down yester-
| day the volume expanded. when they
went down today activity died out.
| The difference from technical view :
point was the difference between bear
! attacks productive of liquidation and
bear attacks failing to bring out real
| stock. In the afternoon prices came
| back quite easily and abruptly in
many of the representative indus
trials The rapidity of the reaction