Evening star., 1924-02-09
Check irl Stock Aduances Called
Wise Moue against Initiation
Market Flooded With Ne,U Securities.
Great Interest in Wheat-Frnnc
Again Turns Wenk-The Outlook.

dark picture OF the Industrial out
look and asserting that there was no
limit to the Wall street decline. There
was danger the way the market was
going week ago and up to the mid
die of last week, of stocks getting
ahead of the business situation OF
over discounting the Improvement
which has occurred in recent months
Flood ef New Securities.
There is no question that, in the
investment market, the constant out
pour of new securities has had a
dampening effect. For the last month
or more these offerings have been
fully twice as large as they were
during the second six months last
year. They have touched the finan-
cial situation in two ways First,
they have provided active new COM
petition for existing issues and there
by stopped the investment advance.
Second, they have helped take UP
surplus money supplies which the up
holders of the imitation theory were
counting upon TO go into the regular
Money rates. have been somewhat
anected by this wholesale outreach-
Ing on the part of corporations and
banking syndicates, for investment
side. Nobody believes for a moment
that with the federal reserve ratio
above 81 per cent-the highest since
the spring of 1917-there is any dan
ger ger o, or a money stringency; But it
VIII be recalled that one of the causes
cited for the decline which set in
last April, was that the security mar
kets mad become overstocked by rea-
son ie OF the excessive output of new
recent example in mind
Explanation Of High Wheat Prices.
One of the curios and almost unpar-
aIieieo points about the wheat market
is that at this time of year the July
ana later options representing the
new crop should be selling SO close to
parity with the May option repre-
senting the old crop This is to be
explained on two grounds, one that
there Is an abundant carry-over from
the 1923 harvest the other that the
grain trade expects the wheat farm
ers of thesnorthwest to follow the ac-
tlon OF the farmers to the south, and
cut their acreage substantially. The
IDEA or how this is going to affect
prices is expressed by the fact that
the July, 1924. option is selling now
some IL cents a bushe1 above where
the 1923 option was selling when it
reached maturity last summer.
The high prices of corn promise to
be one of the outstanding features of
the agricultural sitaution, the same
as they were last season. Ten years
ago REBELLION -bushe1 corn crop
would have meant improbable prices
for the grower. Now we have seen
three years in succession where the
harvest has averaged three billion
bushels and yet prices have stood at
record levels for everything outside
of the abnormal war times. The truth
is. of course, that world consump-
tion of corn, directly of itself. and
indirectly through its conversion into
meat products, has permanently
Increased and what a decade ago
! would have been considered an excess
sive yield now is barely sufficient to
cover requirements.
Weakness of the Franc.
Toward the end OF the week SELL
ing broke out again in French francs
sufficient to lay emphasis upon their
failure to have any real recovery.
This failure may be set down to two
causes-frst, uncertainty regarding g
the fate of the governments program
for increasing taxes, and, second, the
continued expansion in paper note
issues. The financial measures de-
signed to balance the budget and
stabilize the franc may pass the
French parliament, but whether they
will be approved by the country at
the coming election is quite another
question.
Copyright, 1924