June 23.
'YESTERDAY was the June settlement of the Stock Exchange, and it was of such a character that it cannot he passed without notice. For years there has been no quarterly settlement of small dimensions, a fact fully borne out by the circumstance that long before noon the banks had practically finished with it, whereas on other o¢casions the accountants have had to work until late into the night dealing with the transactions of the date, The ease ix that we have had a period of three months in which Forward business in shaves has been practically absent, this notwithstanding the fact' that, at least so far as the banks' are concerned, money is plentiful in Shanghai, This hus had one good effect, that the position created in plantation shares at the end of last year has been wiped out, and the value of these shares on the market has been brought to a sound position. In the absence of forward business, the transactions which have been done in rubber during these months have been on the basis of a return to the shareholder of from twelve to fifteen per cent, and it may be taken that pur. chases during the period have been for investment and not on ive account. It was, of course, only natural that after the drop in rubber prices several months ago, there should be this fall in the value of shares, and there may be satisfaction in feeling that so far as prices are concerned.we now have a perfectly normal market, even, according to some views, one distinctly on the safe side.
On the other hand, it cannot by any means be said that we have a free market for shares. Practically all the reports which we have published in recent weeks have noted the difficulty of bringing buyer and seller together, as generally the holders of stock, looking to the probable return coming to them, are by no means inclined to part with their holdings at the prices offered. In a great many cases these shares were undoubtedly bought on the expectation of a speedy if small rise, but in the absence of any—speculative element such as has been the case during these three months, there have been few buyers
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.