Boston's Bear

When stock market prices trembled from their highs and fell, rumor remembered the claws of famed Bear Jesse Livermore and how he might be running through the list, searching for weak spots to tear at. But last week Bear Livermore publicly scoffed the idea that "the little trading" he does was responsible for the break. Another ogre has been the report of a new bear in Boston who "sells the board" in lots of from 50,000 to 100,000 shares. To conservative Boston bankers the new bear is not familiar. To traders and speculators he is known as William H. ("Bill") Danforth, believed to be the biggest speculator in Boston and recently to have descended in person upon Manhattan. Aged 43, he is tall, lean, Indian-like. Legend says that during some 20 years of speculating he has four times pyramided a $1,000 stake to $500,000, and lost it. Since July, Bear Danforth has clawed feverishly, often turning from bear tactics to buy a stock for a quick play. Although new Danforth fortunes are set at $5,000,000 or $7,000,000, or $10,000,000, knowing friends claim he is not the decline-causing bear of Manhattan gossip, but a shrewd trader who follows trends. Married, Bear Danforth has three children and a Bellanca airplane used chiefly for trips between his Cape Cod estate and his Brookline home, said to contain the most luxurious bedroom in Boston. While prime Danforth-pounded stocks are not known, it is suspected they might include: International Combustion Engineering Corp., down from 103 1/2 to 24 5/8*. Bear argument: Preferred dividend passed, experiments in coal distillation costly and unproductive. Mr. Danforth is supposed to have sold short at 60.

Kolster Radio Corp., down from 78 3/4 to 15.* Bear argument: Small earnings, keen competition to come from the new General Motors-General Electric-Westinghouse-Radio Corp. manufacturing combine.

Marmon Motors Co., down from 104 to 36.* Bear argument: Earnings, quarter ending May 31, 1929, $4.12; quarter ending Aug. 31, 17-c-. Poor outlook for all motors. United Corp., down from 75 1/2 to 49 3/4* Bear argument: General inflation of utilities, exemplified by the Boston Edison case (TIME, Oct. 21).

*Year's high and last week's close.