Business: Favorites

Last week a study of the 1931 portfolios of 85 investment trusts of the management type revealed: i) Union Pacific has replaced New York Central as favorite railroad. 2) Consolidated Gas of N. Y. appears more times than any other stock, displacing American Telephone & Telegraph which is now second. 3) National Dairy Products and General Motors are tied for third. 4) General Electric is again leading heavy industrial after having yielded that position in 1930 to U. S. Steel. Interesting comparisons were that International Nickel is more popular now than American Smelting; Safeway Stores i? ahead of Woolworth; Loew’s ahead of Paramount-Publix; National Dairy ahead of Borden. Stocks gaining in popularity included American Light & Traction. Chrysler, Drug, First National Stores. General Foods, United Gas Improvement. Decreases were shown in the number of trusts holding Aluminum Co., American Radiator, Anaconda, Electric Bond & Share, General American Tank, International Telephone, Kennecott, Kreuger. Radio, Western Union, Westinghouse. Total shareholdings in American Machine & Foundry, Commercial Solvents, Continental Can, Deere, United Corp., North American Co., Gillette, Mathieson Alkali. J. C. Penney and American Ice were among the gainers. The 85 trusts held 10,487,000 shares of 162 selected stocks.

Not the trusts’ but the people’s favorites were listed last week by Standard Statis tics Co. Twenty corporations with more than loo.ooo stockholders showed a 44.3% gain in number of stockholders since 1929. Seventy-four other corporations showed a 36.7% gain. Leaders are:

1929 1931 Gain (000’s omitted) A. T. &T 470 645 41.5 Cities Service 423 607 43.5 General Motors 199 313 57.2 Penn. R. R 196 246 25.5 Transamerica 166 240 44.7 U. S. Steel 168 233 38.7

Biggest gainer among the first 20 was General Electric with 150,000 stockhold ers against 60,000, a 150% jump.