Wall Street's Inning

Among the many superstitions of big-league baseball players is the belief that the teams in first place on July 4 will win the pennants. Last week Wall Street traders seemingly fought to see which could get the highest batting average before the holiday. As brokers raced from post to post, the ticker day after day fell behind. Volume reached new peaks as the public all over the U. S. began buying. One day, 1,090,000 shares changed hands in the first hour--heaviest trading in nine months. June, which had promised to produce the thinnest trading since the War, ended with more shares (23,364,130) being sold than in any month so far this year.

Although prices last week did not keep up the pace of the previous week's uprush, they showed handsome gains. It was even proposed that SEC ease its rules against short selling to keep prices from scoring too many home runs. At week's end, Dow-Jones averages showed new 1938 highs for industrials, up seven points from the week before to 138.53, and for utilities up two points to 22.27; rails, up two points to 27.57, were higher than they have been for four months.

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