Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 21, Number 93, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 August 1900 — COMMERCIAL FINANCIAL [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

COMMERCIAL FINANCIAL

New York trade reports are still somewhat irregular, but the general tendency of conditions seems to be toward improvement. Money continues easy, notwithstanding the rapid approach of the season . when demands for large amounts will come from the South and West for crop moving purposes. The banks at all the large centers are unusually well supplied with funds, and the surplus of the New York banks is about double what it was at this time in 1899. There, is also an abundance of money throughout the West and South this year, and the demand, therefore, is not likely to fall so heavily upon the Eastern banks, as has been the case heretofore. The volume of business transacted in stocks is still comparatively small, but the tone of the markets has lately been growing stronger and they appear to be gradually broadening out. Chicago speculation in the grain markets has been far from active during the week, and the course of fluctuations somewhat irregular. Wheat nnd the speculative commodities of the provision market were higher at the close of Saturday s session on the Board of Trade than they were on Saturday of the preceding week, while corn aud oats were lower. An excellent crop of corn seems highly probable, and a'fairly good crop of oats has been secured, notwithstanding some drawbacks which prevent the crop in its entirety from being spoken of in the superlative degree. Those , conditions were conducive to weakness in prices. Speculators in wheat have been finding it increasingly difficult to come to a definite conclusion \i"ith regard to the probable course of prices for the season upon which they are now entering, in consequence of which business has lacked the spirit that characterizes a period of strong convictions. The domestic wheat crop was never more puzzling to estimate, and there never was a season when more vigorous and searching inquiry was applied to the problem. In the sections of the winter wheat country where the crop has been damaged by the Hessian fly, and in the spring wheat region, where drought destroyed a heavy proportion of the crop, the usual difficulty of apportioning the extent of the loss in its true relations to the whole —always a difficult problem—is this season rendered doubly prone to miscalculation owing to the serious damage where damage has occurred and the excellence of the crops Where they escaped the ills of the devastated territory.