WALL STREET: Whistling in the Dark

One day last week trading volume on the New York Stock Exchange hit a 22-year low (226,580 shares). The week’s total volume (1,634,720 shares) came to only 216 shares a day for each of the Exchange’s 1,375 members. The Exchange, whistling to keep up its courage, called attention to the fact that it was the last large free market in the world, might get new listings of foreign shares (such as Rhodesian copper, Rand mining issues) with a total market value of around £500,000,000. Talk of cutting the membership list recommenced, but where the money to buy up seats was to come from was a question.

For underwriters, also, the week’s news was none too good. New bond offerings, off about one-third from the relatively high level of the week before (TIME, July 22), represented practically all the issues left on the SEC’s registry shelf, presaged still leaner weeks to come. Main issue left: $32,000,000 of International Paper bonds, indefinitely postponed. Still less palatable was the resurgence of investment bankers’ No. 1 grief: private placements, which for the week amounted to close to half the dollar volume of public offerings. Announcement of two private takings, both industrial, made grim reading for Wall Street:

Bethlehem Steel placed $20,000,000 of 1½-2½% serial notes with a group of twelve banks and insurance companies. Fat with cash despite near-peak operations, it planned to add some $3,500,000 of its own, retire half its 3^% debentures due in 1952, bring its total refundings this year to more than $126,000,000. This was particularly galling to Smith, Barney & Co., which was formed in 1937 after its predecessor Edward B. Smith & Co. got caught in a sticky market with those very 3½s (plus a large Pure Oil issue). Now they were being refunded without benefit of any underwriting at all.

Woolworth, to finance a store-improvement program and retire $14,500,000 worth of debentures and notes, sold $22,000,000 of 15-year 2½% debentures to Prudential Insurance Co. of America. The rate on this issue, only ¼% above that on the 14-to-16-year tax-exempt Treasury bonds floated the week before, underlined the pressure of idle funds on the money market.

Another underlining of this pressure: Blyth & Co. last week offered $2,500,000 of Chesapeake & Ohio 1-to-10-year equipment trust certificates at ¼-1¼%, a new record low for this type of issue.