Coming Loans

While the official ratification of the Experts' Plan settlement is being ratified with the usual parliamentary oratory in Paris and Berlin, Wall Street has turned to other topics of discussion. The New York financial centre will be looked to for about $100,000,000 to finance the German part of the plan, but that amount of bonds has long since ceased to be considered a particularly large operation in Wall Street. Financial men privately state that the American share of the bonds has been practically underwritten already. The question of how readily the underwriting syndicate will be able to sell them to the American public, however, remains to be seen. For this reason the terms of the loan are awaited with great interest. An attractive offering is generally anticipated. It is sometimes said of J. P. Morgan & Co., that if it should underwrite bonds in the Sahara Desert, investors would buy them. On the other hand, the house of Morgan gained the confidence of the investing public only by giving it sound and attractive offerings.

Most of the impatience shown at the delay in offering these German Government bonds is due to other financing which is thereby being held up. Germany and Europe generally are short of working capital. It is to be expected that many foreign cities and private companies may seek U. S. capital by offering their stocks and bonds to our investors via Wall Street. Naturally investors will hesitate to invest in such securities until the stability of national government loans seems assured. A German loan is in consequence somewhat of a "curtain-raiser" to a period of numerous and extensive foreign loans.