COMMERCIAL SUMMARY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 41, 17 January 1938, Page 5

COMMERCIAL SUMMARY.

WALL STREET RECOVERY. LONDON, Jan. 15. In these days each week can bo trusted to bring its sensations to interfere with ordinary financial and business progress, for which reason City business men accept philosophically the sudden French crisis which has halted the New Year improvement in the markets. There is little disposition to judge M. Chautcmps charitably among the financial Press. Wall Street has begun to stage its recovery, though it is not based on the return of business confidence but i? due rather to hopes of Government spending on public works and rearmament. Bettor feeling in the United States lias naturally helped the markets in London, the healthiness of which is shown by the way they are standing up to the French crisis and the publication of the trade returns, which showed an adverse balance of trade in 1937 of over £430,000,000, ex- , eluding invisible credits. Shipbuilding figures revealed a falling ofT in now mercantile construction, but it is expected that the naval estimates will be fairly generous and ensure a high level of activity in the shipyards for some years. There has been considerable activity in shipping shares owing to rising freights and the market expects a considerable increase in the demand for tonnage during the next two months, as freights are likely to improve further. The Economist’s analysis of company profits, which i* one of the ourliest available pointers of probable changes in the national revenue, is reassuring, 2279 companies having reported a'n average increase of 17 per cent, in their profits after paying debenture interest. The 1937 index of profits reached a new high record of 113.2 compared with 100 in 1929 and only 63 in 1932. It must, however, bn remembered that nearly 70 per cent, of the profits unalyscd wore earned before April, 1937.