Point Pierced
Measured by the Dow-Jones industrial stock averages, the low point of the Depression was July 8, 1932. On that day the famed stockmarket index sank below 42, lowest level since 1897. After a deal of marching and countermarching in the last days of Herbert Hoover, the stock-market burst upward in the wild inflationary bull market of 1933, and, just before the boom in whiskey shares collapsed that summer, the averages hit 108.
In February 1934, the stockmarket again reached for a record, the averages this time touching no. But in the jargon of chart readers, the market had thus established what is variously called a "supply area," a "resistance level" or a "critical point." To get chart readers bullishly excited the averages would have to pierce that mystic area of 108-110 into new high ground.
More than another year passed without the stockmarket even approaching its two previous New Deal records. Then last March it began to recover from the deep gloom of winter, and by late last month was shooting swiftly toward the old critical point of 108-110. There for a fortnight it wavered uncertainly. Last week in a sudden surge of heavy trading the Dow-Jones average was thrust upward to 114--highest level since 1931.
Twenty industrial stock quotations for July 8, 1932 and for last week:
July 8, 1932. . Last week
Allied Chemical. . . . 45. . 147
American Can. . . . 31. . 124
American Radiator. . . . 4. . 14
American Smelting. . . . 7. . 46
Bethlehem Steel. . . . 8. . 27
J. I. Case. . . . 22. . 59
Chrysler Corp. . . . 6. . 44
Coca-Cola. . . . 77. . 208
Eastman Kodak. . . . 35. . 141
General Electric. . . . 9. . 25
General Foods. . . . 20. . 35
General Motors. . . . 8. . 32
Homestake Mining. . . . 118. . 405
Liggett & Myers. . . . 38. . 108
Montgomery Ward. . . . 4. . 27
National Lead. . . . 45. . 170
Procter & Gamble. . . . 21. . 49
United Fruit. . . . 14. . 92
U. S. Smelting. . . . 10. . 114
U. S. Steel. . . . 21. . 33
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