Businessmen might be pessimistic about the future, but Wall Street took a cheerful view. Day after President Truman’s mobilization speech last week, the market started out at a fast clip, with textiles and such war stocks as Grumman, Lockheed and Boeing leading the parade. In the short, half-day session, 2,020,000 shares were traded and both the rail averages and Dow-Jones industrials scooted up. Reason for the rise: after all the grim advance notices, the President wasn’t nearly as tough about controls and cuts in civilian production as Wall Street had expected. Furthermore, investors saw more inflation ahead and rushed to buy stocks as a hedge against it.
At the start of this week, the market moved up at even a faster clip. In the biggest day’s trading (4,490,000 shares) since the outbreak of the Korean war, the rail averages hit 76.01, up 2.63 in two days, and their highest point in nearly 20 years. The Dow-Jones industrial averages hit 231.03, up 6.33 points in two days, thanks chiefly to the scramble to buy oils, metals and aircraft stocks. A spectacular performer: Grumman Aircraft. After a two-for-one split, it soared from 22⅝ to 28¾ in four days.
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