The New York herald., 1921-09-19
FINANCIAL NEWS
AND COMMENT
MoneyBecomes Easier as Trend
Of Stock Prices Con tinues
Upward.
GRAIN EXPORTS INCREASE
Business Is Broadening, in q
Rugged Manner. Although
Somewhat Irregularly.
GRAIN EXPORTS INCREASE

The position OF monetary ease toward
which the country has been moving
slowly most OF this year was approach ched
last week with more speed than be-
fore. a better way of putting II, per-
haps. would be to say that the signs
OF relaxing money rates and a growth
Of supplies became more pronounced
than they had been at any other time
since January /. 1t was not only the
action of money itself. reflected through
Az per cent. interest on stock market
call loans. and the action OF credit, dis
played through one or two significant
transactions in the bond market, but
the play OF economic forces affecting
rates directly, which pointed the way
toward continued easement.
The South, reports indicate, is selling
cotton rapidly, which is not surprising
in the light of the marked improvement
OF prices in the last six weeks. Cot
ton held in storage from last years crop
is being fed into the market at home
and abroad, and indications point to-
ward the persistent conversion OF the
new crop into cash as it IS gathered.
That the money received by the farmers
Is being used to break the practical
moratorium OF agricultural loans is dis
closed in the fact that banks In the
South have been cutting down their
loans at the larger centres. In grain
much the same thing is going on as in
cotton.
Big Exports of Wheat and Corn.
Exports of wheat and corn have been
going forward on a scale that dwarfs
some of the records OF last year at this
season, when the outflow of wheat was
heavy and of corn only moderate. Thus
BrGdstreets reports that export ship
ments of corn in the week ended Septem-
Der Is amounted to 3,737,437 bushels.
against 1,352.S62 bushels the week be-
fore, and no more than 40,664 bushels In
the second week of September last year.
Three weeks ago a new high record for
wheat exports was established, more
than 10000 bushels with -four equiv
alent) going abroad. but this extrao aordi-
nary squirt has been followed by other
heavy weeks, the seven days ended
Thursday last seeing 11,601,497 bushels
exported, a total within 250,000 bushels
OF the shipments in the corresponding
week of 1920, when. as has been said,
foreign countries were heavy buyers
here. In the last three months wheat
equal TO about one-seventh Of the total
expected crop this year has been ex-
ported. and in the same period nearly
four times as much corn has been sent
abroad as in the same three months last
year.
These figures and comparisons are
cited merely to show the tendency this
autumn toward fairly quick marketing
Of products of the soil. The domestic
markets are absorbing fully the normal
amount OF grain for the time of year,
while the consumption or cotton by home
spinners in August was larger than IN
any other month since the middle OF last
summer.
Those processes mean two things.
Bank loans will be reduced. and are be-
ing reduced, IN proportion to the liquida-
tion of crops; the expansion of cotton
spinning tells its own story of growing
consumption of textile products. and
this. IN turn, spells an improvement Of
business.