The Peak?

The pronounced downward movement on the Stock Exchange has given rise to conjectures by the business world as to whether the peak in business activity has not already been reached. The well known ability of the stock market to " discount" future conditions has led some business leaders to anticipate the Autumn situation this year with less complacency. Industrial news, containing as it did reports of price cuts in oil and weakness in cotton and sugar, tended in general to confirm such less optimistic opinion, although April pig production set another high record. The strong banking position, however, indicates that should present business activity fall off, no such tremendous speculative liquidation as that of 1920-21 will be witnessed, except possibly to a limited extent in real estate. The checkrein to the current expansion of trade and industry will, it is generally agreed, be afforded by the shortage of labor, and the already recognized tendency of labor to lessen productivity under higher wages, which is usually a sign that the peak of prosperity is not far away.