Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 December 1900 — COMMERCIAL AND FINANCIAL [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

COMMERCIAL AND FINANCIAL

New York —Business just now is influenced in a manner by the approach of the holidays. In retail lines there is greatly increased activity. Merchants generally report a highly satisfactory volume of holiday buying. Wholesale and manufacturing Interests, on the other hand, are, in accordance with custom, devoting the present season largely to the work of stock taking and getting matters in shape for the first of the year. There is, therefore, little expansion to be noted in these lines. The volume of business is nothing in the nature of a boom. This feeling is in a measure reflected in the action of the stock markets. While the sales on the New York exchange continue fairly large, the movement of prices has become narrower, and the tendency this week has been in many cases to ease off. There is no longer the rush on the part of the public to load up with stocks. Money is working somewhat closer and bankers say the signs ail point to rat-ler firm rates until after the disbursement of the interest and dividends unusually heavy, 'and in preparing for them the banks may be compelled to temporarily withdraw considerable money from the open loan market. Chicago—Grain markets were fairly firm and moderately active the present week, apparently feeling to a less degree than usual the approach of the holiday season. Speculators for a rise in wheat are encouraged by the reiteration of the reported serious dnmage to the wheat crop of Argentina, accompanied, as such advices were, by an estimate made by an Argentine journal of reputed conservative tendencies that the exportable surplus of this season’s production would not be over 37,000,000 bushels, or about onehalf the quantity shipped abroad from the previous crop. A small reduction in the quantity of wheat in the domestic visible supply as tho outcome of last week's receipts and shipments likewise aided in creating the improved tone of speculative sentiment. In the intervals between the receipt of news of an encouraging character the tendency was to return to the ever-present fact of the present heavy supplies and the indication that they were in no immediate prospect of suffering a diminution sufficient to inspire apprehension concerning the future. Corn ruled strong because of a pointed reminder by the speculator under whose auspices the November short sellers were so badly punished that existing conditions were even more favorable than h month ago for a bold speculator to run another corner. There is virtually no old corn left, and the prevailing weather is against the sufficient curing of the new grain to make it pass inspection into the grade deliverable on speculative contracts. Such condition of the grain, however, cannot be of much longer continuance unless the weather should remain of a highly unfavorable character. The tendency of the market for hog products has been irregularly upward, ' the small stocks giving confidence to and some indication of lighter supplies of hogs in the near future likewise exercising a hardening effect upon prices.