Still Cloudy

All week long, stock exchange traders watched the ticker for some sign that the previous weekend's sudden spurt in both prices and volume of trading (TIME, March 29) indicated the long-awaited break in the 22-month-old bear market.

The week began hopefully, with the first 2,000,000-share day in nearly a year. But the activity drove prices up less than a point (the Dow-Jones industrial average rose .54, to 173.66). Next day trading eased to 1,160,000 shares, and prices fell off a fraction. At week's end, the market was still marking time.

Optimists took heart from the fact that six successive days of 1,000,000-share-plus trading, which meant a lot of profit-taking by those who had bought stocks at their lows, had failed to drive prices down. Whether the market had the strength for a further shove upward was still to be shown. At week's end, with the Dow-Jones industrials up only .83 for the week's 5,710,000-share turnover, Wall Street's crystal ball was still as cloudy as ever. This week it was further clouded by a strike of the Big Board and Curb Exchange's A.F.L. floor workers. Members had to pinch-hit at running errands and quoting prices.

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