Dunce Cap

In quarter-page ads in Manhattan newspapers, the New York Stock Exchange last week pictured a sad-faced businessman wearing a dunce cap. He told a sad story: “I tried to get rich quick. In my own business I base my judgment only on facts. . . . Tips, rumors and hunches are out. I don’t know why I thought the stockmarket would be different.”

The Exchange’s new campaign to keep lambs from being shorn got unexpectedly efficient cooperation from the market itself. The day the ads appeared, stock prices fell 5½ points, the sharpest break since the British debacle at Dunkirk in 1940. By midweek the Dow-Jones industrial average had slipped to 192.38, wiping out the gains of two months. Cause of the break: stock buyers who had been betting that settlement of the steel strike would bring inflationary price raises had changed their minds.

At week’s end, stocks rallied weakly. This week they started down again. Many a businessman was wearing a dunce cap.