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Show Business Conditions in U. S. Mr-LS' J. . ' I V-4 1-9.? V rlL. i - ;f . i ev. srf ' '!' ii-L- '. 4vu v- :7 p7-: This map represents busiuiv. ! i . iU'onst in every state in the Union as set forth in the October lu.mbor of the Nation's Busiiu. .. -;$U Utl pblirUon of the Chamber of Commerce of the United Stun &. Washington, September 26 Lack of definite Indications of marked trends, either up or down, characterize char-acterize the monthly review of business conditions by Frank Greene in October's Nation's Business Magazine. Mag-azine. "Things in a trade vay turned f .r the better in the latter half of August," says Mr. Greene, "and although al-though developments, largely speaking, speak-ing, seemed mainly seasonal, there was evidence in some lines that staned stocks of goods wsro being replenished. Industry seemed to lead the way with accessions nearly everywhere to working force? or to numbers of days worked, all this Indicating that wholesale buyin,; was finding registration in a slightly slight-ly faster pace of industry. "Nevertheless the inertia cailiei had been so great that Augint meeasures of movement seemed disposed to vie with July for the doubtful honor of 'scrapping the bottom' hardest. As described by several observers there was 'nothing to write home about' in the showings show-ings made in August except that there seemed abundant evidence that prices of both raw materials I and manuiacturea ooas were low ! enough and the seasonal buying urge was strong enough to waken trade from its legarthy and induce the covering of many requirements. "Some of the other developments of the month were a rise of about a point in boni averages, this aided by the cheapness of money while stock average despite the 'drought d p' early in August did no; aui'.e hit the low of June. Industrials fared better than did rails which naturally reflect in some areas the prospects of reduced tonnage to be carried because fading in crop conditions in August resulting from the drought are only partially relieved. re-lieved. "Perhaps the most interestny feature fea-ture of the month, however, was the stiffening up of farm product pric-: pric-: es as a whole to a point vhee th'.y practically balanced the new low levels set up by a few important r: tap.es like sugar, coifee, copper, eclten r.nd cotton good-, leather, colli; seed and rubber. In this lesptct, indeed, there cam'- to p.vs some of the possible effects outlined in this column the month previously. prev-iously. That is, the loss in crop yields was perhaps serious enough to check the year-long seepage ot strength in the general price com-cdity com-cdity situation. In this connection connec-tion a point worth noting was that wheat exports in July and wheat and cotton exports in August Aug-ust gained 30 and 35 per cent respectively, re-spectively, revealing an awak"nin?" of export buying, the weakness of whioh in the past two years had caused concern as foreshadowing the reactionary movements in our general expert trade. "Finally it may be said that in a number ofp roducts prices ar; new so low as not to be any longer treated with indifference by buyers because the history of past depressions de-pressions has been that low com mr;dity prices have contained within with-in thernselvese the germ of future enlarged buying and subsequent mur prosperous trade. , "As the result of ebb and flov. movemeents within the groups and ci:.-.nguig advices as to crop yields prices 04 commodities apparently ii.r-ch-jd a dead center September 1. After ten successive price declines, de-clines, the September 1 index showed show-ed only a drop of one-fifth of one s:r cer.t the number of groups gain I :ng cr losing balanced exactly and I the number of individual commodi-I ties gaining or losing was almost identical. "Some of the notable advances included corn which rose 10 cents a bushel in August whereas wheat declined slightly taking the month as a whole, dropping ten cents between be-tween the August 8 high and the August 30 low. Coin prices advanced ad-vanced for nearly every month's delivery but suil did nt reach the level ui a year ago. Wheat dropped to the lowest since 19 H and, if a few quotations 111 that year are c-xcepleed, they were down in early September to the lowest since 1907. "Haw cottcn tell to 11 cents at New York, the lowest price since 1S21. This low price of cotton and the accompanying decline in the new crop prices for tobacco were regarded as especially serious in the South. "Copper joined cotton on an 11 cent basis, sugar made a new low for all time and cattle, hogs and iambs made noteworthy declines from earlier in the year, cattle and lambs dropping 36 and 38 per cent respectively lrom January 1 but rallying with hogs later in the month. "Raw cotton advanced sharply for a while after reaching 11 cents at which point it was 40 per cent below a year ago. In its advance it apparently started a cotton goods buying movement, the gain in these being shared in by rayon and silk goods. In fact, it is easy to understand that these prices went low enough to be tempting to ?a:iy fall buyers who seem to have bought at least seasonally of these goods. "Early September saw new low prices recorded for coffee and rubber rub-ber but, as these were not of domestic dom-estic production, they attracted less attention than did some other price movements, "A review of the buying move-mem, move-mem, which began in mid-August reveals better takings of some kinds 01 steel, the gains already noted in textiles, a slight improvement in lumber buying, a better demand for anthracite and bituminous coal in the larger sizes and good buying of paint and painting materials. These latter trades, historically speaking, seem to liven up when new building is slack. "The uneven movement of prices pric-es was uneven within the steel trade in that finished materials especially espec-ially used in the autmobile trade casced off in price for awhile although al-though steel scrap strengthened perceptibly. Importance is attached attach-ed to the latter feature because it is often esteemed a barometer in dication. , A review of the summer's hap penings must include knowledge that vacation spending this year dm not seem to be on a par with recently re-cently preceding years, this including includ-ing seashore as well as mountain acation spending. Tourist traffiic also seemed to taper oil a little from earlier years. The showings made in July and August in some leading lines in which comparison is possible reveal that August, traditionally a dull month, lived up fairly well to its reputation this year despite the concededly more active appearance of things late in the month. Stock and bond sale and bank clearings and bank debits in August were below those of July and, except for bonds, the percentages of shrink age from the like month a year ago were heavier in August than in July. So in what few industrial indus-trial measurers are available at the time of writing as, for instance, pig iron production, preliminary 01 !'.V.nr permit values, and automobile auto-mobile production, the aggregates j tor August were below those of j July and the percentages of decease de-cease from a year ago were heav- icr in the eighth than in the seventh sev-enth month. "For the eight months failures were 19.5 per cent and liabilities 38.7 per cent greater than a year ago and exceeded all previous years for that period. Among the industries, indus-tries, , pig iron production dropped 32.7 per cent for August and 197 per cent for the eight months, automobile production fell 53 pei cent for August and 36 per cent for the eight months and lake iron ore shipments were off 23.6 'per cent and 25.5 per cent respectively. Building (preliminary figures) was 11 per cent below July and 30 per cent below August a year ago. Later Lat-er returns may modify this showing because New York, which had a larg total in July showed a marked mark-ed shrinkage in August. "An interesting feature in the industrial line is that takings by mills of raw silk were larger in August than in July and much larg er than June but the decline from a year ago for August is 30 per cent and for eight months is 15 per cent. The car loading exhibit of late, reflecting new crop movement, has been better than in earlier months but four weeks loadings in August showed a drop of 16.9 per cent from a year ago and the decrease for eight months is 11 per cent. The point seems to be that while car leadings gained over July, the to-! tals of loadings reveal a descending scale of percentages when compared with last year." |