OCR Text |
Show Little Change In Business Activity Little change in Twelfth District business activity was recorded in June. Aggregate industrial pro--duction was slightly lower than in May, increases in lumbering and output of food processing industries indus-tries not quite offsetting declines in other fields. Department store trade increased noticeably, after seasonal allowance for the first time since last October, and registrations re-gistrations of new automobiles rose sharply. Other trade measures meas-ures changed little or declined. Prices of a number of commodities Important in the District advanced, advanc-ed, thus following the recent upward up-ward movement of wholesale prices pric-es in the United States. Banking and credit changes were chiefly of a seasonal nature, and the relatively rel-atively easy condition of recent months continued. At the beginning of July the outlook for crop production was satisfactory. The condition of livestock live-stock as well as ranges improved during June and at the end of that month was better than at the same time a year ago, when the lack of rainfall in the spring of 1931 had begun to have a pronounced pro-nounced effect. Prices for rarm products continued extremely low, not withstanding advances in several sev-eral quotations, particularly those for livestock. Construction and mining activity activ-ity receded further during June and production of petroleum declined, de-clined, presumably as a result of that industry's curtailment program. pro-gram. Lumber output was at the high point of the year in June, contrary to the seasonal movement move-ment which usually reaches a peak in May. Consumption of lumber, as indicated by new orders, or-ders, also increased. Flour milling, slaughtering, and wool . consumption consump-tion increased slightly. The July holiday demand foi currency dominated commercial bank operations during the fivei weeks ended July 10. A substantial substan-tial inflow of funds to this District Dis-trict during the last week of June resulted from District banks recalling re-calling balances which had been deposited in other parts of the United States. This inflow was much more than offset in the following fol-lowing two weeks, however, by increased in-creased currency circulation and subsequent losses of gold to other districts through both commercial banking and Treasury operations. A slower than usual return of holiday hol-iday currency from circulation necessitated ne-cessitated increased borrowing from the Reserve Bank to build up reserve deposits during the second sec-ond week of July. Total loans of reporting member banks continued to decline, but both time and net demand deposits increased slightly during the four weeks ended July 20 th. |