Evening star., 1923-06-27
PRICES OF STOCKS
AGAIN SMASHED
Gains of Past Year Nearly
Wiped Out as Heavy Sell
ing Wave Spreads.
BY STUART p. WEST.

Special Dispatch to The Star
NEW YORK, June 27.-Railway
shares bore the brunt of selling in
today's market No reason for this
could have possibly been found In
the May statements. which, for the
most part, were as favorable as eN-
pected The selling was mainly at
tributed to market conditions, the
point in this connection being that
rails on the average had not had
their proper share in the downward
movement of prices.
Union Pacific, under what looked
to be forced liquidation broke 3
points to 12S, at which figure 1t was
we'll under the lowest OF the year.
Weakness in Northern Pacific might
have been attributed to the general
revulsion of sentiment in Specula- :
tive circles, which was very hopeful
even as late as fortnight ago on
the subject of increased railway divi-
dends. and has now faced about com
pletely, believing that these Will not
occur.
At today's prices Pere Marquette
common had lost practically all the
ground gained in anticipation of the
recent 81 dividend declaration. New
Haven was sold on the slight In
crease in the May income and on
first five months of 1928 and the same
period in 1922.
Selling Very General.
Although it was reported unoffi-
cially that the money was on deposit
to meet the July coupon on Virginia
Carolina Chemical 712 per cent bonds,
this had no reviving effect upon the
stocks of the CONCERN. Both pre-
ferred and common made new lows.
the former down over points.
American Agricultural Chemical was
similarly weak.
to the winding up of accounts in
volved in some of the recent failures.
Whether or not this was true. there
were evidences of a good deal of
example. a large bloc of Industrial
Alcohol was taken over at "A against
a., the Tuesday close. Another in
stance was Texas Pacific which, on
punched selling orders. had sudden
drop of points. Still another was
Sears Roebuck, which fell points
or 50 on what looked to be dis
tress selling!
Steel shares most of the time Of
fered better resistance than the aver
age to the selling movement. Special
buying kept on in one or two IN
dustrials like Steel and Tube pre-
ferred and Dawson Chemical. But
these were exceptions The selling
movement elsewhere was very gen
eral.
Rubber Stocks Also Crash.
Steel common during the greater
part of the time showed some re-
sistance around its low figure, and so
Gid Baldwin Locomotive. Steady
absorption of Studebaker seemed to
be going on around par, but 1t was
not heavy enough to prevent the
stock breaking through.
Another drop in crude rubber to
the lowest of the year so far was
accompanied by extreme weakness In
United States Rubber and a further
break in Kelly Springfield. One of
the disturbing things was a fall OF
points or so, most OF II in the last
hour and a half, in Republic Iron
and Steel New lows were made in in
many of the oils, but as group they
were not as weak as most others.
Some people today regarded 1T as
noteworthy that California Petroleum
new stock should have done SO well
the past few days in face of the
weakness in the general body of in
dustrial issues. 1t Is understood that
certain interests undertook to sup
port California Petroleum sometime
ago. and that they are now buying
results so far as its market action
is concerned.
Three Months Gains Gone.
The prolonged decline which has
more than wiped out the entire ad
vance of the first three months of
1928 and has brought prices back over
pretty much all the ground gained in
nearly a year, can only be explained
in one of two ways. Either 1T por-
tends some serious recess in outside
trade, the signs of which have not
appeared, or else is simply a specula-
tion for the decline quite as unrea-
sonaDle as was the bull speculation"
of October, 1912. and more extreme
than the ver-enthusiastic campaign
last winter.