From Peak to Peak

From the Federal Reserve Board last week came news that department stores started their Christmas season from the highest take-off point in history. Sales in the final pre-Thanksgiving week hit 182 on the 1947-49 index, up from 169 in 1958. Only 5% ahead of 1958 at the beginning of November, department-store sales were 6% ahead in the second week of the month, 8% ahead in the third. Other signs of a faster beat in the economy:

P: The Pacific Northwest lumber industry, in a price recession since July, noted a turn-around in buying for 1960 construction. Price of the most popular grade of plywood jumped $4 per 1,000 bd. ft. in the week to $68.

P: Contract awards for factories, stores and office buildings continued a two-month climb and pushed October nonresidential construction awards to a record $1,003,457,000, or 5% ahead of last year.

Business was coming back fast from the steel shortage. As representatives of the steel industry and the steelworkers got ready to meet in Washington with federal mediators, the steelworkers warned the Government to stockpile steel lest there be a shortage for defense purposes if the strike is resumed when the Taft-Hartley injunction period ends Jan. 26. But the Government refused.

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