Green Pastures

U.S. security underwriters were in such clover as they had not whiffed since the Big Blow hit Wall Street 16 1/2 long years ago. The Securities & Exchange Commission reported this week: corporate stock and bond issues in 1945 shot up to $5.8 billion, almost double the 1944 total.

Most underwriting, cashing in on low interest rates and a sellers' market, was in refinancing ($4.6 billion, a record). But new-money issues, nearly zero in wartime, when the Government paid the freight, started popping forth as soon as peace came to Europe, were blossoming thick & fast going into 1946. As the pastures grew green again in private financing, the volume of U.S. long-term Government issues faded off from a 1944 high of $52.4 to $47.3 billion in 1945.

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