LONDON EXCHANGE QUIETLY HOPEFUL

Manawatu Times, Volume LVI, Issue 6519, 7 April 1931, Page 7

LONDON EXCHANGE QUIETLY HOPEFUL

Prices Improve All Round SETBACK FOR INDUSTRIALS United Press Association. —By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright. LONDON, April 5. The Stock E.xehango broke up for rhe Easter holidays in a much more cheerful frame of mind than seemed likely a week ago when the gilt-edged market was upset by Mr J. T. Lang’s threats of repudiation. Last week’s satisfactory news from Australia about Wednesday’s payment of the interest on Now South Wales stocks, however, had an immediate salutary effect. Prices improved all round, though business was not extensive. A further incentive to bullishness was found in the fact that the Budget deficit will not be so largo as was at one time feared, also the improvement in the gold position. Yet another good factor was tho revival of the hope that the Chancellor cf the Exchequer, Mr Philip Snowden, will find it possible to carry through a successful war loan conversion sehemo before the end of the year.

Industrial shares have had to bear the brunt of several unpleasant shocks lately, notably the poor trading reports of important companies like the Cunard Line , and United Mollasses, Limited. The latter had a disastrous vear, showing a debit balance of £913,000, compared with a profit of £972,000 the previous year. Tobacco shares also roaeted on expectations that tho Budget would impose an additional duty and rubbers were weak in price. Despite all these unfavourable influences thero has been no great pressure to sell. The tone of the market is quietly hopeful. Companies’ Shares. During the company-promoting boom of 1925-29, when the shares of many more or less bubble companies were foisted on tho unsuspecting public, it was a common thing to announce that the issues woro over-subscribed, whereas really the public response had been small. Such incorrect announcements will be impossible in future, as tho Advertisers’ Association has arranged with the editors of newspapers to refuse over-subscription announcements unless they aro accompanied by a statutory declaration, signed by a director’'and the secretary of the issuing company, stating that tho applications exccoded the number of shares available for allotment and were accompanied by the appropriate remittances,