Record Beginning

A happy blend of year-end confidence and year-opening optimism brought a new high for the stock market last week. When the closing gong ended trading on Dec. 31. the Dow-Jones industrial average stood at an alltime record of 583.65. The year's gain in dollar value of the more than 5 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange was the largest in the Big Board's 166-year history, rising to about $275 billion from $196 billion at the end of 1957. Stock Exchange transactions totaled 747,058,306, the largest volume since 810,632,546 shares were traded in 1930. On the first day of trading in 1959 investors again sent the Dow-Jones industrial average to a new high of 587.59.

Spurring the market's rise were reports from Detroit that automakers are scheduling January production of new cars 22% higher than a year ago. Ford stock rose 32 points when it predicted that dealers would add $1 billion to sales by marketing 200,000 to 400,000 more Ford cars in 1959 than in 1958. Ford's new Galaxie series is accounting for one-third of current sales, and the Ford division will increase its January production schedule of these models 15%. General Motors' Cadillac division reported that retail deliveries of Cadillacs in the first 20 days of December set a record. The Pontiac division has already produced 38% of its entire 1958 model year output (217,282 cars), still has 24,000 dealer orders to fill. Ford and Chevy also reported hefty increases in December retail-truck deliveries. Chevy said truck sales in the first 20 days of December were up 38.5% from last year, and Ford expects December to be the best month for truck sales since 1955. Many in the industry, like scrappy, optimistic American Motors President George Romney, were revising industry predictions upward from a 5,500,000-car year. Said

Romney: "Total sales of U.S.-built and imported passenger cars should be more than 6,000,000, barring crippling strikes, excessive monetary and credit controls or adverse international developments."

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