Unbowed

The bull market last week pranced and surged in the heaviest trading on Wall Street in a decade. As 15,335,622 shares changed hands, not even fierce onslaughts by the bears at mid-week and at the start of this week could shake the market much. At 212.58, the Dow-Jones industrial average was only a few points down from the year's high. To jubilant bulls, this looked, as one said, as if "nothing can keep this market down."

Even more impressive was the fact that the market, which has often seemed deaf to good news, had suddenly grown keenly sensitive to it. Favorable earnings reports scnt individual stocks soaring. Example: when American Cyanamid last week announced first-quarter earnings of $8,784,017 ($3.03 a share) more than double the comparable 1949 figure, its common stock shot up 6 3/4 points to $73.

Wall Streeters thought that they could see more good news ahead, barring prolonged strikes. Most reports of first-quarter earnings were rosy (see below) and production was still on the rise. Last week in their biggest week ever, steelmakers poured out 1,900,000 tons of steel, yet demand was so high that grey markets had reappeared in such lines as cold-rolled sheets and premiums were running as high as $50 a ton.

What also made bulls optimistic was the fact that even after the market's big gains, many a blue chip was still selling for no more than six times earnings.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.