The Rock Island Argus and daily union. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1920-1923, 1922-02-02
NALL STREET
! NOT AFFECTED
BY bad NEWS
nv STUART p. WEST.

wall Street, New YORK, rep. e.
80 was little in the way of fresh
lrisnation beyond the facts re-
ssl..rrsing the general Wall Street po-
! k.scr 10 account for the strength
4 me stock market today. A fort
- l..st ago the majority of the active
sssding element made up their mind
ssss the traditional January rise"
- ever. and that 1t would be sue
sssded by the equally familiar
sTshr1,ary reaction" The special
,sason which, on this occasion,
sssmed to support this view, was
.sst the market would have to face
.srough the coming month a SER
- OF very depressing statements
.sar 1921. In consequence a new
ssort interest had been gradually
lowing up which reached very re-
J srectable dimensions earlier in the
geek
.sne apparent yesterday and still
+ more today was that the bad news
vhich the traders had been count
ne on to bring out selling Of real
stocks, and so permit of the profit
able covering OF short contracts,
vas having no such effect. The mar
.kst It was shown, was not looking
behind to last years results but
vas treating the heavy deficits of
The steel and other industrial cor
porations as episodes belonging to
he past. What happened today
was simply the acknowledgment
by the Wall Street professionals
that their attitude was wrong and
that the best thing to do was o
AXE In their commitments on the
short side, regardless of the loss
involved.
Next to the disclosure of the
strong positions on the stock ex-
change the most important event
Of the day was the continued rapid
advance in the pound sterling, car
rying the rate up approximately to
! the s430 level. This is a gain of
IS cents in the pound within a week,
and nearly ten cents within two
weeks Inasmuch as everything
points to Great Britain's having
balanced its current budget with
the United States, it is not easy to
set limits upon the return of ster-
ling toward its old time parity. The
strength in British and French ex-
change made more painfully con-
1spscuous the sagging tendency of
isthe German mark, which besides
the other disturbing causes at
work was rejecting the new COM
eplicaion of the nationwide railway
strike. Lire broke badly on the
/. resignation of the Italian cabi-
net.
'a Stock exchange trading, which
Z had grown dull while the profess
SIGNALS were experimenting with
efforts to get prices down, became
much more active as soon as the
D market started forward. This is
an accepted sign of the real ten
dency in the price movement. The
advance was quite general, al
thought so far as the railroad
shares were concerned it was much
more moderate than in the indus
atrial section. Public Utility stocks
1were noticeably active and strong
under the lead of the New York
City fractions, in which the out
J look has evidently changed.
Mexican Petroleum, StudebakeT,
d Baldwin Loco, American Loco and
the other speculative leaders felt
. the effect of the urgent demand
s from the short interest.
On no day so far have pool
operations appeared any more con-
fdent, and a host of = specialties
we're bid up, some OF them like
q Electric Storage Battery, General
Electric and United Fruit with con-
Siderable violence.
II Sugar securities both bonds and
stocks, sprang forward again when
: It was announced that the Cuban
Zane Sugar company had disposed
OF all of its unsold surplus.