Current Situation

Little has happened during the past week to make the general industrial outlook more cheerful, except perhaps a rally in stock prices. At this writing, the recovery in the stock market is still difficult to interpret with complete assurance. Nevertheless it bears the appearance simply of a "covering movement" by previous short sellers, and is consequently of mainly technical and temporary significance. It is noticeable that the stockmarket has given no real signs of accumulation, and that the strongest stocks have generally been those whose declines had produced a large "short interest."

No intelligent person thinks that the period of declining projects through which the country is very plainly passing will end in calamity, or be of very long duration. The recognition that business is not first rate and will probably get worse before it gets better is not a moral or patriotic crime, but simply the acceptance of the apparent facts of the situation. Yet many leading business men seem to feel it necessary to appear optimistic, and to preach lengthy and rather shallow sermons on having faith in the country's future. This sort of thing does much more harm than good.