The Stock Exchange.

Feilding Star, Volume XXI, Issue 125, 25 November 1899, Page 4

The Stock Exchange.

It is many years since the Stock Exchange was so disturbed as it. wew dnring the first days of October. It seemed to have awakened suddenly to the fact that there was dangerahead. There seemed to be growing a fear of British reverses, which had adisheartemag effect at the outset, and men began to circulate lists containing the names of people who were considered "Shaky" It was the first real war scare for a decade. The Fashoda trouble, Iho Jameson Baid and the China embroglio bro ugh t t depression for a tew days only, ana the reaction followed immediately in each case, la October there was no reaction, and the alarm was, in consequence, the more serious. Speculators saw that if prices continued to fall, they would only create fresh losses foiv themselves by holding their stocks^ and there was a general rush to sell So far, the actual panic seems to have been averted, m spite of the British reverse*. Business men in London have probably begun to realise, by this time, that every trade m the country is not going to ba ruined, and that commerce and industry must go on as before. It is not at once obvious why trouble m South Africa should affect shares in purely Home concerns. It seems absurd that the outbreak of war should send down the price of shares in BarnUttVS Cncus Company; but, in reality, there is no cause for surprise in that. War msar.s a strain on the money market. . London and otb.gr. banking centres have to send thousands of pounds in god to the seat of war, and money becomes scarce. The rate -of interest therefore rue , and speeulato-s have to pay too heavily to maki their business altogether lucrative. At the same time, the sciir.:ity of niouey causes the takings in most trades to fall. off, and t-ie prices of commodities rise, while the people have actually less money to spend on luxuries and amusements. A panic on the Stack Exchange is not always caused by this state of affairs ; it is more often due to the fear of impending depression. The Stock Exchange is really more sensitive than, a barometer, and not bo reliable. ' A whisper of trouble abroad is sufficient to send speculators rushiag to sell their stocks, for what they dread is a gold famine That is why "Barnums and " consols " fell in sympathy when trouble was brewing in the Transvaal.