MONEY AND MARKETS

Evening Star, Issue 21317, 23 January 1933, Page 9

MONEY AND MARKETS

LONDON'S FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW STOCK EXCHANGE STAGNANT GREAT INCREASE IN BUTTER CONSUMPTION Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. LONDON, January 21. (Received January 23, at 9 a.m.) Stock Exchange conditions last week are best described as stagnant, for though there has been no serious decline iu prices in any section business has fallen to very small dimensions, except South African mining shares, in which dealings have been active under the stimulus of the decline in the sterling value of South African currency. Gilt-edged securities have been dull, with a slightly easier tendency in British funds, but Australian and New Zealand securities continue steadily to harden. Industrial stocks, which started the new year so briskly, have not maintained their activity. The removal of part of the Treasury embargo on new issues is expected to lead to a revival of capital flotations in the near future. Already newspaper and tailoring firms’ issues have been readily subscribed, but two municipal loans —Barnsley and Essex County—failed to hit the public taste, and the underwriters were left with a large proportion. This is attributable chiefly to the high price at which they were issued, for investors are not keen on paying 98 for municipal 3i per cent, stock when they can get conversion loan at 99. THE BUTTER MARKET In its annual report on butter the A. L. Mills Company refers to the great increase in consumption which enabled the country to absorb enormous imports amounting in 1932 to 522,500 tons, of which the Empire supplied* 52 per cent. The average consumption in 1931 was 7,325 tons weekly, which increased in 1932 to 7,700, and it is estimated during the last two months to have averaged 8,200 tons weekly. The report adds that outlets are continually expanding, particularly in the Midlands and the North of England, so it can now bo said that Empire butter is selling in practically every city, town, and village in the United Kingdom. Press Association inquiries show that this increase in consumption, which, of course, is largely due to the low retail price of lOd and Is per lb, and in some places slightly lower, is seriously affecting the trade in margarine, of which some well-known brands are now retailing at 9d for 21b. The raw materials from which margarine is manufactured are all cheap, notably copra at slightly over £l3 per ton, but the margarine people are having a very lean time, SHIPPING SUBSIDIES Discussing shipping subsidies at a meeting in Belfast, Lord Craigavon (Prime Minister of Northern Ireland) said that every first-lass ship launched from British shipyards incidentally made obsolete a large amount of tonnage laid up in our harbours, and the consequence of an economic vessel leaving the stocks was to make worthless many of those laid up, which would never “up anchor ’’ again. When Continental countries discovered the futility of massed endowment of their shipping fleets and when much of the laid-up tonnage was scrapped Belfast would find orders coming, if less than in former years, yet sufficient to absorb shipbuilders now unemployed, but having the desire and capacity to turn out the best vessels that sailed the Seven Seas.