Financial Notes
AMERICAN INFLUENCES.
APART from one or two special sections, and notably high-class investment stocks, the depression in the stock markets referred to a week ago in these columns has become still more pronounced. So far as the general list of active industrials and semi-speculative stocks is concerned, the main influence has been the further slump on the New York Stock Exchange where prices in many instances have gone even lower than in the famous slump of last autumn. On Thursday of last week, there was a temporary rally based on the rather unexpected reduction in the New York Bank Rate from 8 to 21 per cent., but the improvement was quickly lost, and on Monday prices opened in Wall Street at about the lowest for a long time past. At the moment of writing there has come the almost inevitable rally on " bears" covering their positions, but the general out- look in the States continues to be unsatisfactory. The slackening in trade activities is very pronounced, while unemploy- ment is spreading. In fact, it is becoming increasingly clear that the reaction in the United States following upon fifteen years of unprecedented prosperity may be more prolonged than the people of America had ever anticipated. * * * *
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