Omaha daily bee., 1922-05-12
Financial
Ghe Mem 1Srk @mes.
By ALEXANDER DANA MOVES

l ."~ s'sS s.0 WV
New York. May il.-A general but
very ill-distribu,ed recovery N for
eisn exchanges today, bringing CON
tinental rates up small fraction and
nearly reaching the sI.4S rate again
Tor sterling, may possibly have indi.
Gated the markets view that some
thing positive may occur a, Genoa.
now that the Russians have made
their answer. The movement was.
however, apparently OF tentative char
acter, rejecting the speculative at,i-
tude. On the stock exchange the
uncertain fluctuations OF the week
continued with extremely irregular
net changes at the end.
The only novelty was provided by
advances running as high as 4 to
7 points in some OF the independent"
steel shares. The bidding was natural
ly based on statements that the
amalgamation OF certain OF these
properties was about to be effected,
but il was hardly a momenlous move
ment. The steel merger has been
in process OF "discounting" on the
stock exchange for months and with
out convincing observant fnaneiers
that a startling overnight enhance
ment OF values was a, all a probable
result Of il.
New High Record.
Perhaps the most interesting fact about
today's weekly federal reserve statement
was its showing that, for the first time
In its history. the systems actual gold
holdings had crossed tho $4,000. .ooo.o 900
line. Such an Incident Is one of the
landmarks of tho present extraordinary
currency situation In the United states
and tho world at large. Tho present gold
holdings are almost exactly double what
they were in armirtice week OF November.
1918. and taking the United States mints
estimate of about $1,000. 100000 for the
gold monetary stock Of tho whole world.
the federal reserve now has in It's vaults
little more than 20 per cent Of tho total.
At tho end OF 1917, on the samo basis OF
reckoning. tho federal reserves holdings
made up only 20 per cent OF the sggre-
gate.
So far as regards the statement In gem
eral. the further striking change for the
week was decrease of &3L70o,000 In re-
discounts and OF Sl4. 900 In note circu-
lstion. a movement which may not prove
that trade Is not using moro credit for
its slowly increasing activities, but which
shows that II anything OF the kind is
happening. the private banks are abund-
antly able to finance such requirements
out Of their own resources. Presumably
this fact foreshadows continued easy
money. even In case OF a considerable
business recovery.
British Exports Drop.
The export figures in today's cabIed
statement of Englands foreign trade
statement for April possibly throw some
light on Lloyd Georges determined strug-
ket at whatever political cost. The total
export OF British products was. In value.
considerably the smallest of any month
since September; except for that and four |
preceding months OF 1921, the April ship |
ments were less than at any time since |
the spring of 1919. This decrease from
other recent periods is not attributable |
to Russia. Even as compared with pre-
war years, the shrinkage Of England's |
trade with Russia has been small when |
compared with the shrinkage in trade
with Germany. British products shipped |
to the German market in 1921 were VAL |
ued, despite the rise in prices, at 22s00,- |
600 pounds less than the shipments of |
1918 the decrease in consignments to |
Russia was only 100000 pounds. But
the fact that Russia's present require
ments for reconstruction are prodlgious.
and that British trade should have the
chance OF supplying them. It is difficult
otherwise to explain the evidently serious
talk OF huge foreign loan to soviet.
In the other aspect Of the British trade
statement, its bearing on the Internal tionai
balance and the. rate for sterling It will
be seen that the surplus of merchandise
imports over exports for April although
the largest thus far in 1922 is still far
below the months showing last year or
the year before.