Brass Futures Rally as Foundry District Relights Its Third Furnace
Traders on the Exchange floor greeted the first plume from Chimney No. 3 with hats aloft; skeptics note the boilers have not yet passed inspection.
The Foundry District's long-cold third furnace was relit at dawn on Tuesday before a crowd of gearwrights, bondholders, and at least one unimpressed municipal inspector. Within the hour, brass futures had climbed to their highest mark since the Great Flywheel Correction, and the Exchange's brass bell — itself overdue for re-casting — rang long past the customary three strikes.
Proprietors of the works credit the recovery to a redesigned governor assembly, said to hold pressure steady "through storm, strike, and shareholder meeting alike." The Inspectorate, for its part, has scheduled a full boiler examination for the end of the month and urged the public to temper enthusiasm until the rivets have been counted.
Down on the trading floor, opinion split along familiar lines. "You can't argue with a lit furnace," said one broker, waving a fistful of warrants. A colleague, older and sootier, disagreed: "You can argue with anything, provided the margin call hasn't come due."
The Gazette's own actuary, consulted over lunch, would commit only to this: that steam rises, that markets follow, and that both eventually condense.