AM concerned in the trade have passed a worrying week. The immediate situation is not critical for tthe simple reason that actual dealer Josses and the extent to which these Bossos must eventually be shouldered by importers cannot yet be ance tained. Meanwhile, local values chew a gradual—though small—advance on the week and there are definite signs of further strength. Also, exchange has rallied by 1d. and £0 these two factors do assist to ome extent and trade demand for staples has improved. Both sales and clearances now tend to shrink and'will do s0 even more as China New Year approaches; in fact, most, sales from both first and. second-ands are for actual clearance when mace forward. This situation was largely caused by prominent specu-_ ators having sold their near months' commitments and purchased for-werd Cotton is considerably stronger foeing 'Tls. 1 per picul higher than' a week ago. It is expected that very little cotton will be delivered on the Exchange this month and "shorts" have been covering, American Cotton is more or less unchanged and a certain amount of business Indian cotton has been reported, this larier having been bought principally in yen and rupees, Messrs. Spunt & Ca. in th weekly report write as follows:—
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.