Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-12-02
STOCKS IRREGULAR
IN QUIET MARKET
Selling Appears in Some
Groups, but Others
Show Gains.
BY STANLEY w. PRENOSIL.
Associated Press Financial Editor.

NEW YORK, December 1.-THE line
of least resistance in today's stock mar
ket was again downward. Sporadic out
bursts of buying took place in a selected
assortment Of tobacco, public utility,
railroad and chemical shares, but these
were checked when professional selling
pressure was renewed against United
States Steel common and several of The
other so-called pivotal industrials.
Trading was relatively light in volume.
The days business news was mixed
in character. A series of increased and
extra dividends by small companies was
offset by reports Of further decline
in steel mill operations in the Midwest
to about 80 per cent Of capacity and
reports of further falling off in sales
of some of the large automobile manu-
facturerS.
The announcement of a large capital
expenditure program by the railroad
and public utility companies for 1880
apparently has failed to stimulate much
of demand for the stocks of COM
panies likely to profit by this increased
business.
Brokers' Loans.
The further decline of $4,000, 900 in
Federal Reserve brokers loans last
week brought the total down to the
lowest level since November, 1927. Thus
eight weeks of defiation have more
than wiped out the gains of the pre-
ceding two years. Credit conditions
continue relatively easy. Call money
renewed at Az per cent and appeared
to be in fairly plentiful supply at that
figure.
| Columbian Carbon was the spectac-
ular individual feature in today's mar
ket, running up nearly 20 points on
what appeared TO be the retreat of an
over-crowded short interest.
Early in the session, a good demand
also developed for the Western Mary
land issues, Atlantic Gulf e. West
Indies, American Tobacco issues. Sim
mons Co. Allied Chemical and United
States Industrial Alcohol, but the buy
ing petered out when weakness cropped
out in other sections of the list.
Early Gains Lost.
J. I. Case and General Electric can
celed their early gains of 5i4 and 3
| points, respectively, the latter selling
| down to 2l2, or 81 points below last
| weeks close, before it met effective buy
| ing support. Anaconda Wire g. Gable
broke 6 points to a new 1929 low at
495s. American Telephone Detroit
Edison, Fox Film, Loews and Union
racine sofa down 4f2 10 6b2 points and
Atchison, Pennsylvania, Electric, Auto
| Lite and United States Steel common
/ sold down 3 points or more, the last
named touching 1894 or within 10
points Of the low price reached in last
months break.
Weakness of steel, American Can,
| Westinghouse Electric, Johns Manville,
| Du Pont and Anaconda was attributed
| to a resumption of bear attacks by
| professional operators who have been
hammering the market since the begin
ming of last week.
Rallying tendencies developed in the
last hour in sympathy with the buoyancy
| of the chemicals. Hasty short covering
erased earlier losses, and the upward
trend carried Columbian Carbon 26
points above the previous close, ]. I.
Case 9 and United Carbon 8. Eastman
Kodak, Otis Elevator, United States
Freight, Worthington Pump and A. M.
Byers rose to points. Fox Film
recovered 5 points of its earlier loss of
6as. Selling broke out again in the
final dealings, and the close was ir-
regular.