Tim RUBBER SPECULATION.
IN view of the cheerfulness which has characterized most markets during the past few months, and especially bearing in mind the rampancy of the rubber market, it remains to be seen whether the closing weeks of the year on the Stock Exchange will be marked by the activity and optimism which is so frequently in evidence. Much, of course, will depend upon the extent to which the rubber speculation has been financed on borrowed money, for if bankers' loans have figured very much in the matter it is highly prob- able that the drawing in Hof loans in connexion with end of the year balance-sheets may occasion a considerable amount of liquidation. I am not at all sure, however, that such loans amount to any very large total for, owing to the smaller contango facilities as compared with the pre-War period, the eager seeker for rubber shares has been, for the most part, called upon to take up his purchases. Indeed, signs of that fact have not been wanting in the recent dullness of some other departments of the House, and more especially in the set-back which has occurred in certain industrial shares, buyers of rubber shares having evidently sold all kinds of other secu- rities to enable them to enter the fashionable arena. Not the least striking feature, however, of markets is the one referred to elsewhere, namely, the firmness of investment stocks in spite of the rise in the Bank Rate.
* * * *
Previous page
