Picking Up?

The stock market caught fire last week. For two days, volume topped 2,000,000 shares a day, the most active trading in more than a year. Led by such blue chips as A.T. & T., General Electric, Jersey Standard and Illinois Central, which have paced many past advances, the Dow-Jones industrial average scooted up more than six points, this week hit 281.08, a 22-year high. Much of the buying came from investors who had been on the sidelines during the presidential campaign or out of the market for years and were now heartened by the Republican victory.

Aside from the election, there was news of another sort to encourage investors. Despite the steel strike, said the Commerce Department, output of goods and services hit an annual rate of $343 billion in the third quarter, a new high and up $14 billion from last year's total. There were also signs that production costs were leveling off. The cost-of-living index, though up slightly in October, had dropped enough in the past three months to require 1,000,000 workers in auto, aviation and other industries to accept a wage cut of 1-c- an hour under the terms of their contracts. Many prices were stable enough so that Price Boss Tighe Woods last week decontrolled a long list of consumer items.

But in spite of Wall Street's bullishness, and the cheery figures behind it, there was more talk of impending recession last week than there had been in months. One of the loudest talkers was Elliott V. (for Valiance) Bell, editor & publisher of Business Week and former superintendent of banks in New York state. Bell, who was considered in line for Secretary of the Treasury if Dewey had won in 1948, took note of such things as tightening money rates, weakness in commodity prices, narrowing profit margins and the approaching peak in arms spending. Said he: "Whether the boom lasts six months or two years more, the new Republican Administration will probably have to deal with a major business setback." On the other hand, said Bell in the if-and-but manner of most pundits, "most businessmen think a recession is due in 1953 or 1954, but they do not expect it to be either deep or disastrous."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.