FINANCE AND INVESTMENT
CALL it fortitude, stubbornness or stupidity but the British investor is taking these Continental week-end scares amaz- ingly well. On Monday the market adopted its usual precautionary tactics of quoting a wider and lower range of prices—the jobbers' method of .riding a punch—but scarcely any selling developed. By Tuesday sentiment had improved and the market was again functioning more or less freely. In gold-mining shares a widespread buying movement gathered the momentum of a minor boom. Welcome as even this ripple on the placid face of markets must be to the rank and file of brokers, it is not the kind of movement one really wished to see. The buying is speculative and is concentrated almost entirely on the shares of companies, such as Western Holdings, which have no record of achieve- ment behind them and an unassessable future ahead.
Nor can I share the view enthusiastically bandied about in Throgmorton Street that this boomlet in gold shares will " boil over" into other sections and revitalise the moribund market in home industrials. Why should it ? The highly-specialised activity in gold shares does, admittedly, indicate that there are still some speculators left with enough courage• (or cupidity ?) and money to take a chance on prospects, but it also points to the mme important fact that prospects in other groups, including home industrials, are so blurred that these sections are being left alone. It may be that trade recession is slowing down, though I see little evidence of this yet, but most investors will want to see a less tense political prospect and some sign of an American business improvement before buying home industrials in any speculative sense. In my view, investors should steer clear of this gold share boomlet—I do not mean dividend- paying Kaffirs—and, if they contemplate purchases of home industrial ordinaries, should hold their hands a little longer.
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