The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1921-07-17
VACATIONS AND
HEAT co FAR TO
HOLD BUSINESS
Bradstreets' Food Index Is Up
2.8 Per Csnt-Duns Wholesale
List Has - Recessions.

Heat and vacation influences COM
bined to bring about inactivity in the
general business situation during the
past week, according to the trade re-
views made public last night.
Trading In light summer wear has
been the leader In the retail and job
bing trade here. Bradstreet's weekly
food index showed a gain of 2.S per
cent. compared with the preceding
week. Dunn's list Of Wholesale prices
Indicated recessions in forty-four
items and advances in thirty-nine.
Bradstreet's index number based on
the wholesale price OF thirty
articles used for food was s2.s3. com.
pared with sass in the preceding
week. or the seventy-nine commodi.
ties of all kinds quoted, twenty-one ad-
vanced, fourteen declined. and forty
four remained unchanged. Advances
were recorded in flour. wheat. red
wheat, spring corn. oats. barley, rye
flour. hams, short ribs, lard, butter.
cheese. cotton-seed OIL live hogs. oleo
oil. cotton, gray goods. linseed oil.
hides, hay and yellow pine.
The items which declined were corn
flour. coffee, eggs, prunes, macaroni,
union leather. Bessemer pig iron.
southern pig iron, old Philadelphia
car wheels, wire nails. coke, tin.
spelter and Pennsylvania hemlock.
Prices Unchanged.
The following items remained I'm
changed during the week: Mesa pork,
tallow. raw sugar. refined sugar, tea.
tapioca, beans. peas, apples, potatoes,
rice. molasses, raisins, currants, lem
ons. live beeves. live sheep live lambs,
Pacific hops, N. Y. hops. condensed milk
evaporated milk, print cloths. brown
sheetings, ginghams, Ohio delaine
wool, Ohio half-blood wool, crude
petrol. refined petrol, basic big iron,
Bessemer steel billets, OH steel bill
let's, steel rails. steel bars. old Chi
caRo car wheels. Pittsburgh steel
scrap, Chicago steel scrap. Chicago
cast iron, tin plates, copper. lead.
antimony. Adirondacks spruce and
Douglas fir.
Commenting on the general bust
ness situation during the week Brad
streets notes the following:
Continued high temperatures and
vacation influences reinforce other
causes. notably cautious buying for
needs and disinclina ton to
deal heavily as to the future pending
q clearer view of crop outturn and
prices generally, the result being that
trade, except In light summer wear
lines Of dry goods, has been held down
to a low midsummer level. Industry
In, II anything. a shade quieter than
heretofore, but the trend of collections
has been a trifle more prompt and crop
reports are rather better. Summer
dullness pervades the stock market,
but the .undertone Ia fairly firm at tile
slight rally from the low points Of June
reached in previous weeks, and this
,-l-
attributed to the transfer of some
purposes.
.. Foreign Exchange.
The continued downward trend Of
foreign exchange does not seem to
carry the depressing influence at
tached to II in previous periods. In.
deed, the disposition Ia to charge the
weakness In sterling spd most Con-
currencics to reported Eu.
ropean buying of wheat and cotton,
the former due to reports of drought
damage TO crops abroad, the latter
to renewal OF buying by British man.
who are reported to be
busily engaged In attempting to re-
gain advantages lost to Continental
by the epidemic of
strikes. and particularly by the
paralysis of operations growing out
OF the coal stoppage.
Foreign buying of wheat, indeed,
IL said to have been evoked more by
damage abroad than because Of the
widely heralded injury to the Ameri.
can crop. Shading of figures of
American yields, outside of spring
wheat, Ia not SO active as while
ago, and the rather better tone of
Canadian advices and the reports Of
large yields In the Pacific Coast
State. rather tend to balance these.
The corn crop is at a critical stage,
tssseling. but aside from the central
Ohio Valley, the trend IL to believe