Business: Current Situation: Aug. 18, 1924

• Share

Industry and trade are in the doldrums, which is partly due to seasonal causes, and partly to more serious factors. Steel and iron, motors and textiles seem distinctly stale. The oil industry seems unable to halt overproduction. Landlords are beginning to wonder whether enough tenants are going to "come back from the shore" this Fall to occupy all the available shops, houses and apartments. Merchants are keeping their stocks down and their hopes up. Enthusiasm, curiously enough, seems confined to agriculture and finance. For once, the wheat farmers and Wall Street are on the same side of the fence.

Money continues easy, and, judging from the last cut in the Reserve rate, may be expected to continue so for some time. Foreign political outlook is visibly brighter, also foreign bonds and exchange in consequence. Domestic finance is absorbed by railway mergers on a large scale. International finance is even more alert over coming foreign loan flotations.

The coming barrage of political bombast and fustian may chill the somewhat delicate bloom of trade and industrial sentiment. Indeed the stock market seems to reflect such an occurrence. Yet the country has survived many major political campaigns, and probably will manage to this year, too. Meanwhile prospects for better business are extraordinarily bright and pronounced, while current business for the most part is extraordinarily dull and unsatisfactory.