FINANCIAL NOTES MARKET INFLUENCES.
THE two main factors which seem likely to have chief influence over markets in the immediate future are the industrial developments in connexion with the coal situation and monetary developments as influenced by the course of events across the Atlantic. With the first of these points I have already dealt in a separate article. As regards monetary conditions the feature has been the raising of the New York Bank Rate from 31 to 4 per cent. This action was undoubtedly prompted by the growth in speculative activity in Wall Street, for it must not be forgotten that prosperity, like adversity, can bring its own special problems. With the object of preventing an undue diversion of loanable capital from commerce to purely speculative purposes, and also of maintaining a sound exchange position, the Federal Reserve Bank has constantly to impose a check upon the exuberant activities of Wall Street—hence, doubtless, the present rise in the New
York Bank Rate. .
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