DISTURBING FACTORS

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 31, 6 August 1923, Page 7

DISTURBING FACTORS

| DEPRESSION OF STOCKS RUBE, POSITION AND INVESTMENTS. (DKIIBD PRESS ASSOCIATION.—COPSRIQHT.) j (AUSTRALIAN • NEW ZEALAND CABLE ASSOCIATION.) LONDON, 4th August. The Stock Exchange has had a depressing time lately, with its tone even duller than it usually is in the first week of August, with the holidays in full swing, and for this the political situation must be blamed. "Bears" were unable to take advantage of the nervousness arising from the international complications, and. there was much liquidation, some traceable to Paris and some to New York. The decline in Continental exchanges also contributed to the weakness in international securities, being regarded as likely to cause financial trouble in foreign centres which would induce forced selling here. Even the gilt-edged market did not escape a certain amount of forced liquidation. i A surprising feature was the steadi- i ness which characterised the Stock Ex- j change yesterday, despite the grave nature of Mr. Baldwin's statement regard- I ing the Ruhr 'situation. It might have been thought that this would affect both the stock markets and foreign exchange markets, but both the franc and the mark exchanges showed no further decline, and even the news that the German bank rate had been raised to the phenomenal figure of 30 per cent had no adverse effect, while the news of President Hardmg's death caused no weakness. Business all round has been quiet in view of the holidays, but the exchange closed with a distinctly firm tone.

Evidence of the depressed state of British trade is furnished in the latest index number of commodities published in the "Economist," which shows a decline of 199 points in July, having fal len to the lowest point since the Armistice, the level of prices now beinu 63 per cent above the figures prevailing at the outbreak of the war. %ere is an almost unbroken list of declines in all commodities, practically the only excep-