AMERICAN TRADE WILL IMPROVE.

Shannon News, 9 January 1923, Page 3

AMERICAN TRADE WILL IMPROVE.

DESPITE POLITICAL STORMS. LONDON, January C. The New Year opens with an optimistic feeling regarding the improvement of trade, for which there appears to be considerable justification. One of the most satisfactory features has been the stability of the level of commodity prices, as recorded in “The Economist” during the whole of 1922. The greatest percentage of change was only 9.4, and at the end of the year the index figures were practically the same as at the commencement. As “Barclay’s Bank Review” points out, the importance of this freedom from violent fluctuation can hardly be exaggerated. It has greatly simplified the problem of liquidation which remained from the ’nflated boom of the early post-ar-mistice period and has largely removed the natural hesitancy of buyers. Twelve months of relative price stability have also enabled much progress to be made in the re-adjust-ment of costs of production to the altered scale of international competition. Wages have been reduced in some cases more drastically than is desirable, but profits have also been reduced drastically and a comparison between these two factors in costs is no longer open to the criticism which in some cases was justified during the artificial prosperity of 1920. The Stock Exchange opened at the New Year with a decidedly confident tone and the reparations crisis had no appreciable effect till yesterday, when the news of the breakdown of the Conference caused some selling by in-and-out operators, who hastened to take the profits when they had accrued, out for the greater part of the 1 week the ease of monetary conditions and the large amount of money coming forward for investment outweig'hel. political influences and there has been considerable activity. Indeed, some large blocks of shares, especially industrials, have been readily absorbed by the public, and this is regai’ded as a clear indication of the prevailing optimism covering the general prosnects for the current year.