The New York herald., 1922-07-04
FINANCIAL NEWS
AND COMMENT
Stock Trading Dullest in Two
Years-Cotton's Big Rise
Feature of Day.

Except for a sensational advance in
cotton yesterdays markets hi Wall
Street were the dullest and most feat
ureless affairs in many moons. Trading
in stocks and bonds was almost at a
standstll. and there was little more
activity shown In the other markets.
Cotton was the center OF attraction in
The financial community with an ae
vance of more than 175 points. or $3.50
4 bale, on publication of the Govern
ment crop report showing condition
as of June 25 of 71.2 per cent. and an
indicated yield of a little more than
| 100000 bales. While this condition
| figure was the largest for June in four
years. 1t fell materially below expecta-
tions. and as result there was a mad
scramble TO buy on the floor of the
| Cotton Exchange.
The five hours in the stock market
were extremely dull. AT times the
tickers were at a complete halt. and
some indication of the lack os interest
may be had from the fact that between
: and 2:15 o'clock total of only 1900
shares of stock changed hands This
was at the rate of 10000 shares for a
full session. OF course the total trad
ing was in excess of that figure, getting
up TO 21s,400 shares. but even at that
figure il was necessary to go back for
lower mark in the records for two
years to June IS, 1920, when trading
aggregated 214,343 shares AS a matter
Of fact, there have been but few Satur-
day half sessions this year which have
returned such low total OF transactions
as did yesterdays five hours of trading.
1t was not difficult to find the reason
for the extreme dullness. One look at
the floor and at the customers rooms
of various commission houses was suffi
cient. The customers rooms were al
most completely deserted except for the
firm employees, and on the floor the per
centage of absent members was the
largest in years. The governing com
mittee last week might we'll have grant
ed the holiday petition. for their refusal
to do so made no difference in the at
tendance in the street No one changed
his plans by reasons of the failure to
obtain a holiday. Traders merely
stayed away
Operations in certain pool stocks were
conducted as usual, however, notwith-
standing the small attendance. In fact.
the absence of a large majority OF the
professional traders from the floor en-
abled pool operators to do things with
their stocks which they might not 9TH
erwise have been able to accomplish.
The silk stocks, some OF the oils. and
certain specialties were put up easily,
and the feature OF the trading in stocks
was an advance of almost IA points in
the shares of the +. !. du Pont de Ne
mours Company. SO exceedingly closely
held is his issue that little bidding
advances ii in a sensational way. There
was absolutely no significance in the
aimless floating about up and down, of
the general list.
Foreign exchanges were as featureless
as the other markets. On compare
lively light trading. most OF the Eu-
ropean currencies showed little change,
with the exception OF the German mark.
and that made another new low at 22%
hundredths of cent. The continued
decline of the mark in the last fortnight
has ceased to attract attention. so
many factors account for ii that no one
is surprised. Publication OF Germanys
import and export trade figures Tor.
May yesterday did not help her currency
any, showing as it did another unfavor-
able trade balance of 100000, 600
marks. This was smaller unfavorable
balance than in April but was suffi-
cently large to indicate that little prog
res Is being made.
Call money opened at AZ per cent.
and was quoted at that figure all day.
The extremely small busines in securi-
ties made the demand for funds light.
but the rate held firm. possibly because
Of the extra day for which commitments
were being made.