Wall Street: The Educators

One reason why so many new investors are taking the plunge these days is that virtually every brokerage firm is offering free courses in the mysteries of the market. The New York Stock Exchange, which prepares lessons and teaching aids for member firms, has helped organize 780 lectures drawing 33,690 people in the New York City area during the past six months. “It’s almost mass-production sales promotion,” says Reynolds & Co. Partner Alpheus Beane. His firm offers three different levels of courses to groups gathered anywhere from Y.M.C.A.s to shopping centers, and it is now sponsoring its second series on investments for National Education Television.

Brokers have been offering market courses for years, but the number and variety are burgeoning. For the teaching broker, the rewards can be considerable. Firms have found that 35% to 40% of their students sign up for accounts. In Cincinnati, Thomas Shuff of Hayden, Stone Inc., has started an eight-week, non-credit course on investments at the city university. Last week, at the first session, he was pleasantly surprised to find his classroom packed with 200 possible accounts. Even unions, with big pension funds and increasingly affluent members, are eager to learn about the market. Reynolds was recently asked by a New York local of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. to give a four-session course to the brotherhood.

Predictably, Wall Street’s leading investment educator is its biggest firm, Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc., whose representatives last year made 6,524 appearances before 215,798 people—a 33% increase over 1966. Audiences range from corporation employees to social-club gatherings. This spring, vacationers aboard Grace Line’s Caribbean cruise ships will find a Merrill Lynch lecturer on hand. The firm’s representatives work with department stores to give women a combination stock market education and fashion show; one of the gimmicks used is a dress made of material with a stock-certificate pattern. As another example, onto the stage strolls a leggy model wearing one of the latest styles in stockings. Says the fashion commentator: “Aren’t they lovely? These are opaque crepes by Hanes called Flower Pow.” At which point the Merrill Lynch man interjects: “Hanes—now there’s an interesting stock! Our research division gives it a good quality rating and Hanes’s outlook is improved by the demand for panty hose.”

While women, who control about 51% of all stock outstanding, appear to be the most prized pupils, the Wall Street educators seem ready to teach a course to practically anyone. A Bache & Co. representative not too long ago gave a series of three lectures on closed-circuit TV to the inmates at the state prison in Jackson, Mich.