Business: Mail Order

Investors in Sears, Roebuck & Co. and Montgomery Ward & Co., mail order stocks last week watched their securities become speculative favorites on both the Chicago and the New York stock exchanges. In Manhattan where one day the total trading in all listed stocks came close to 3,000,000 those mail order securities accounted for 6% of the transactions—Montgomery Ward around 109,000 shares; Sears, Roebuck more than 72,000 shares. Deals in Radio Corporation of America alone exceeded theirs that day. The same day in Chicago their sales together accounted for nearly 45% of the Chicago exchange’s trans-actions—Sears, Roebuck 32,500, Montgomery Ward 14,000. Reasons: Sears, Roebuck expects to do at least $290,000,000 business this year, Montgomery Ward $200,000,000. A corollary reason in Sears, Roebuck’s case: During the week its President Charles Morgan Kittle announced that the firm would build a $5,000,000 mail order house and retail store in Boston, with a retail store in Cambridge. Construction of another mail order distributing house in Minneapolis will be completed in March. Thus Sears, Roebuck will have distributing plants in Atlanta Los Angeles

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