Financial Notes
Aurtnstri ACTIVITIES.
Tun Stock Exchange is accustomed to anticipate a renewal of activities at about this period of the year which, with an occasional break round about the end of December, not infrequently extends until the following May. Accordingly the present fortnightly account has commenced with a fair amount of buying chiefly in some of the more speculative markets, activity still centring in the Artificial Silk group and in some other industrial concerns, such as Gramo- phone and Graphophone shares. Some of these are being pushed up to extraordinary heights, but one hesitates to suggest that the movement is necessarily a mere gamble inasmuch as profits are known to be extraordinarily high in some of these industries. On the other hand, there is no gainsaying the fact that the speculative movement in the industrial market has assumed rather large proportions, and it is impossible to note the great expansion in banking loans without feeling that some part of them represent advances to the Stock Exchange. I am inclined, therefore, to suggest that in these popular shares there is need for considerable caution, and it is not perhaps inadvisable for the public to remember that sometimes it is the least popular and the neglected markets which can be entered with greater safety.
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