Finance--Public & Private
The Investment Outlook
IT- would be interesting and possibly profitable to readers of the Spectator if I were able, in the course of this article to indicate in clear and definite fashion whether advantage should at once be taken of the considerable fall which has occurred during the last few weeks in investment securities to effect purchases. Unfortunately I am unable to do this, for there was probably seldom a time when greater difficulty was experienced in the highest quarters of forming a judgment with regard to future financial developments. This, I think, is due to the fact that at least three important factors, any one of which may easily affect the outlook materially, have conspired to operate at one and the same time. Some of these factors, such, for example, as the rise in money rates, have been so clearly foreseen that they have already occasioned sales of British Funds by financial institutions, the proceeds in many instances being placed in Treasury Bills pending a clearer outlook. That fact in itself should be sufficient to indicate the uncertainty which is felt in many quarters with regard to the position, and I do not propose, therefore, in the present article to do much more than touch briefly upon the three factors to which I have referred, and then a few weeks later it may be possible to refer back to this article and form some more definite conclusions with regard to the future of investment securities.
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