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Show WHEAT PRICES HAVE DROPPED Suggestions That Greece and Sweden Would Enter War Causes Prices to Sink. Chicago, Sept. 16. Highest prices on wheat this season have given place within the past week to quotations that in somo cases wero more than 11 cents lower a bushel. Top figures due to the government crop report covering cover-ing a sensational decrease of the 1916 yield in the spring crop states did not last long in the face qf suggestions that Greeco and Sweden would enter the war and that Argentine wheat surplus sur-plus threatened to find an outlet in the United States. Even at the outset of the week, tho trade as a whole appeared certain that tho government crop had been fully discounted, notwithstanding that the damage to the spring crop had been the most colossal the country had ever known, reducing the yield an almost incredible total of 200,000,000 bushels as compared with last year's harvest. Attempts by holders who had failed to take profits found support lacking on Saturday and it was not until an expected decrease of the United States visible supply late on Monday stimulated stimu-lated exports that a temporary rally ensued. The attitude of Greece indicating indi-cating an improved prospect of the opening of the Dardanelles gave tho bears a renewed advantage Tuesday and so too did reports of defeats of thc'Bulgars. Primary elections made Wednesday a blank In the wheat pit, but Thursday furnished more than a double allowance of excitement, with a price smash of 7 cents a bushel. Despite the fact that the supposed decision of Sweden to enter the war proved to be a canard and that the reports of Argentine shipments to the United States also were nearly devoid of any solid basis, the wheat market on Friday failed to develop strength except to a relatively small degree. Confidence on the part of the bulls seems to have been too badly shaken to permit of anything like an immediate imme-diate full recovery, but a renewal of export buying furnished reason for considerable courage, and there was a further element of strength in tho fact that drought seemed to have clutched the crop in Argentina. Unlike wheat, the coarse grains and provisions showed no great change in price during the past seven days. |