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supply  to  demand  in  any  one  country.  It
will  be  seen  that  they  are  all  factors  which
exercise  an  influence  that  equably  affects  all
the  stocks  of  any  one  country,  yet  which  must,
of  necessity,  differ  in  different  countries.  The
resultant  force  of  these  various  factors  we
have  called  the  “  Market  Influence,”  of  which
the  dominant  factor  is  the  course  of  trade  of
the  country  in  which  the  chief  market  for  the
stock  is  situated.
So  strong  is  this  influence  upon  the
realisable  value  of  stocks  that  it  is  capable
of  entirely  nullifying  the  effect  which  the
individual  improvement  in  a  security  would
otherwise  have  had  upon  its  current  market
price.
This  fact  is  very  strongly  brought  out  in
the  case  of  the  Taff  Vale  Railway  Ordinary
stock.  In  1898  the  average  price  of  this
stock  was  79  and  the  dividend  it  paid  was
l£  per  cent.  ;  in  the  year  1901  the  dividend
had  been  increased  to  3£  per  cent.,  but  the
stock  had  fallen  to  71  ;  again,  by  1904,
the  dividend  had  further  improved  to
3$  per  cent.,  yet  in  this  year  the  price  of
the  stock  touched  68.  Briefly,  as  the  Taff
Yale  Railway  Ordinary  dividend  steadily
increased,  the  price  of  the  stock  steadily
diminished.