Financial Notes
UNCERTAIN MARKETS.
ON the whole the past week has been one of progress in the stock markets, though at the same time price movements
have been of a rather irregular character. British Govern- ment- stocks received a fillip for a time from the great success which attended the new Conversion Loan, but subsequently
there has been a reactionary tendency, due to alarm con- cerning the growth in national expenditure, so that already the -Budget is beginning to cast its shadow over markets, while, as I explain in an article elsewhere, Mr. Shaw's unfor- tunate remarks in the House of Commons concerning the War Loan gave the markets a further jar. Moreover, although the setback in prices may have been small, it must be remem- bered that there are one or two influences operating just now which normally should occasion a rise in gilt-edged securities, one of them- being the easier tendency in money rates,- and the other being the fact that we are on the eve of the dis- bursement of over £50,000,000 in War Loan dividends, an operation which usually leads to a good deal of re-investment in high-class stocks. Transatlantic industrial shares have been a rather dull market during the week on a renewal of Wall Street liquidation, while there has been a certain amount of forced selling here.
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