The Washington herald., 1920-11-21
MARKET SEEKS
LOWER LEVELS
Decided Lun IN Previous Heavy
Liquidatiss Ns6eeable During
Short Session
MARGIN CALLS PROMPTLY MET
Attack on Cncible Steel ID Re-
newed and Steck Drops 10
New Low.

NEW YORK. Nov. zo.-About ali
that can be said Of today's market
is that IL showed q decided lull In
the urgent Liquidation which has
been such a commanding feature In
recent trading. This may have been
due to any one of three or four
causes. but probably TO q combina-
ton Of all. For one thing, IL was
only a half session and there was
some disposition to even up COM
mitments. Margin calls in most
cases were met with satisfactory
promptness. and as a matter OF
fact customers accounts for a year
or more have been handled In
very conservative way by stock ex-
change firms
Telegraph Companies Reap Harvest
Nevertheless. IL must be admitted
that the telegraph companies reaped
harvest from the messages which
went out last night asking clients
for additional margins. One big
commission house started sending
its batch OF messages within half
an hour after the market closed
yesterday and the kilograms were
still being sent without interrup-
ZION at IL O'Clock last night. As
general thing. however. the ac-
counts on the books Of the average
brokerage firm have been greatly
reduced in number and stin margins
have been demanded for some time
previous to the recent break. The
position of the Street" therefore is
iconsidered quite sound.
So far as the days trading was
concerned. only two features at
tracted more than passing atten-
tion. One was the renewal Of the
attack on Crucible Steel, which
broke 10 new low levels. with 4
moderate rally toward the close.
The other was the confident ana
rather general buying Of the rails,
movement in which all OF the re-
Gently active issues shared.
The recovery in Northern Pacifc
was quite marked and Southern Pa
cific Great Northern and New York
Central also were fairly active and
firm The minor rails moved UP. al
though the recovery in certain is
sues was little more than fractional
Bank Statement Help, Mart.
The improved tone was aided by
the expectation of favorable bank
statement. So far as the Clearing
House banks were concerned the
figures were somewhat confusing
and the rather colorless showing was
explained by the Treasury Depart
ments transactions in connection
with the retirement OF the September
issue Of certificates and the new is
sue which was placed with the banks
on Tuesday Although the weekend
trade reviews did not make cheerful
reading for market operations. Ger
tain developments during the week
which have escaped notice are
worthy of comment At one of the
local department stores a sale OF cot
ton hosiery is being conducted Un-
der the name OF the manufacturers
Prices are very low and actually. or
at least practically. around a pre-
war level. The public response has
been very gratifying and when the
knowledge of the event becomes
more general II is believed that il
will be clearly demonstrated that
the public is ready to buy when IL
believes that prices are right. This
experiment will be worth noticing.
There was another collapse in
grain prices to new low levels. but
cotton was fairly steady under the
influence of the weekend covering.