Business: Sad Stocks

In London’s Stock Exchange last week brokers developed a new parlor game of cricket-with-ping-pong-balls. Wall Street went in for ticktacktoe.

Hammering headlines from the steel front (see p. 11) drove shares to new lows and near records for inactivity for the year. It was the first time since C. I. O. got into action that strike news has been a general market factor. The motor sit-downs last winter merely interrupted the market’s upward climb and prices were later pushed to new recovery highs.

Stocks of the struck steel companies, however, suffered no more than others. Bethlehem was down from the year’s high of $105.50 to $76.50 per share; Youngstown Sheet & Tube from $102 to $74.75; Republic from $47.25 to $31.25; Inland from $131.25 to $94.75. Yet U. S. Steel was also off from its high of $126.50 to $92.50 per share and Chrysler sold below $100 for the first time in more than a year. Most spectacular break was in Auburn Automobile, which crashed from $23 per share to $13.50 in four days.

On the New York Stock Exchange volume climbed above 1,000,000 shares on two days but trading lately has been dull as ditchwater. Meanwhile Wall Street began to get acquainted with C. I. O. at first hand as organizers for the Bookkeepers, Stenographers & Accountants Union prepared for a September drive.