Bull Run

For weeks the New York stockmarket has dawdled while buyers tried to make up their minds about the war. Last week, they came to a decision they were willing to bet on: Germany will last for another six months, at least. Result: the market surged upwards in five successive million-share days. And the bellwether Dow-Jones industrial averages, which reclined in the optimistic days of last September, rose to their highest point, 151, since January 1940.

Surprisingly, the rush of buying was started again by the rail stocks, though most of the roads chugged past their profit peaks months ago. But at the prospect of heavy war traffic for most of 1945, the Johnny-come-latelies thought there was still time to climb aboard. Even such second-graders as Illinois Central helped lead the rush that put the rails at their peak since 1937.

From them, the buying spread right across the board as buyers looked for undervalued stocks. Sears, Roebuck and Loose-Wiles went to new highs for the year. The movie stocks, gilded by the amusement boom, climbed right along with them. Typical example: Loew's, Inc., not cheap at 71, went up ten points in the last ten days. As usual, the market was also full of bargain hunters, shopping among the cheap stocks. As a result, many of the blue chips, notably General Motors and U.S. Steel, lagged, were still below their year's peaks. Furthermore, many a war stock, which had dropped a few months ago, was now being eagerly snapped up again.

But the prospects of a longer war, and a postponement of the uncertainties of reconversion, were not the only shoulders holding up the market. The plain fact was that there was plenty of idle money and the things which it could buy were becoming fewer & fewer. There was no place for it to go but into the market.

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