FINANCE AND INVESTMENT
By CUSTOS
IT is now a case of pull devil, pull baker in the stock market News from the political front is obviously disturbing, and frankly I cannot blame investors who make up their minds to get reasonably liquid or speculators who decide to cut out all commitments. We are back once again to a position in which the chances of a fall in prices following some fresh political shock are greater than the possibilities of a rise. which clearly indicates the foolishness of nursing speculative " bull " accounts in the vague hope that a substantial recovery is at hand. In these conditions, even the steady accumulation of promising evidence from the business front has not overmuch significance. Tin-plate is recovering rapidly from last year's slump levels, the February figures of new private car registrations are expected to show an increase of over 20 per cent. —which surely confirms my recent forecasts of a definite turn in this sensitive branch of industry—and lo and behold! the London, Midland and Scottish has scored a plus in its weekly traffics fully a month in advance of my most sanguine expectations.
It is clear enough that, politics apart, investors would have ample grounds for hope, but the proviso is more important than the proposition. Even business itself, I feel, once it has exhausted the momentum it acquired towards the end of last year, cannot escape the effects of a further period of more or less acute political tension, and in any event American business, which conditions any genuine recovery in commodity prices, and hence any real upturn in many branches of British export trade, seems to be faltering at a level some to per cent. below the peak of last December. All things considered, I cannot see that investors in search of capital appreciation can take much harm by waiting.
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