STOCK EXCHANGE REVIEW

Evening Star, Issue 21636, 3 February 1934, Page 11

STOCK EXCHANGE REVIEW

THE SYDNEY MARKET The Sydney Stock Exchange, in its comments to January 15 on the course of the market after reopening noticed that bank shares participated in the upward trend, though not to the same extent as those of some other sections. Relatively low immediate returns and an impression that the recovery may be less rapid than that of, say, various trading and industrial concerns evidently handicapped progression. The pronounced strength of the wool market found definite reflection in the prices for shares of pastoral and pas-toral-finance companies, all of which moved to the best levels for a long time. It is reasonable to expect that the commissions of selling companies will benefit with the rise in wool values, and that the_ position as regards advances to clients will become healthier.

Shipping shares remained firm; insurance interests also remained fairly stationary, notwithstanding the effect that increased trade must have ultimately on premium income.: Gas shares, and particularly those -of the Australian Gas Light Company, figured prominently at enhanced rates. Sales of gas are improving—an encouraging indication of bettered conditions—and payment of 6 per cent, statutory dividends is assured. Anticipation that a decrease in unemployment, with resultant greater Spending power of the people, will ■be accompanied by ap increase in the consumption of brewery products was largely responsible for substantial forward movements in the prices of shares of interested companies. As usual in any period of recovery, leading trading and industrial enterprises attracted considerable attention. The support was so distributed that the shares of a large number of undertakings brought enhanced figures. Some are dividend-paying, others are not. Some have been bought in the expectation that dividend rates will be increased in the near future, others have been acquired in _ anticipation of their return to the dividend list at no far distant date. Some have been bought to hold, others have been acquired to sell at a profit when the opportunity occurs. All have been purchased under the stimulation of brightened prospects.