SEWELL AVERY is getting some strong support in his bitter proxy war against Financier Louis Wolfson, who wants to take over Montgomery Ward. Two big institutional investors (Affiliated Fund, Inc. and American Business Shares, Inc.) announced that they will vote their total 105,000 Ward shares in favor of Avery. Midwest investment brokers, whose advice has a big bearing on how small stockholders vote, are also beginning to lean toward Avery.

WORLD TRADE will get a healthy boost from the U.S. Federal Reserve System. After a four-year lapse, Federal Reserve is again buying "bankers' acceptances," i.e., drafts drawn on banks that guarantee payment, usually in 90 to 180 days, used primarily by international traders.

THUNDERBIRD -CORVETTE race for the U.S. sports-car market is all Ford so far. In the first five months of production, Ford has delivered 5,925 Thunderbirds to customers, 1,900 more than total sales for Chevrolet's competing Corvette in almost two years. Ford's Thunderbird production line at Dearborn is on overtime and still two months (about 2,400 cars) behind orders.

UNITED AIR LINES, which has been flirting with the idea of buying turboprop transports, has decided to wait for a pure jet. Until the commercial jet age arrives, it will stick to standard piston-engined craft. It has placed a $42.5 million order with Douglas for 15 more DC-7s (total fleet: 27), plus another eleven DC-6Bs for shorter hops.

FTC CHARGES against Philip Morris on grounds of misleading advertising have finally been dropped by the Federal Trade Commission after twelve years of battling. The company has stopped claiming that its cigarets are less irritating than other brands. But the FTC will press similar charges against Liggett & Myers (Chesterfields) for stating that Chesterfields are "milder," leave no "unpleasant aftertaste."

BIG-CITY STORES are far from dead, despite the recent swing to the suburbs, says B. Earl Puckett, chairman of the 75-store Allied Stores Corp. Puckett's chain, in big and middle-sized cities, did $544 million worth of business last year, will spend $20 million in the next 2 1/2 years building new downtown stores.

APPLIANCE PRICES will drop this year, even though orders are likely to be 10% above 1954, predicts Westinghouse Electric President Gwilym A. Price. The reason: "Competition."

GENERAL SHOE CORP. is in hot water with the Justice Department over its acquisitions culminating in its recent purchase of Delman, Inc. The department argues that General's 18 purchases since 1950 have the net effect of creating a monopoly.

CONRAD HILTON, on whose hotels the sun never sets, is dickering to expand his far-flung empire (34 hotels operating or abuilding in seven countries) to West Berlin. Hilton is working out a deal with the Bonn government to put up a 400-bed, $4,760,000 luxury hotel, the biggest in the Western sector.

CAMPBELL SOUP CO., biggest U.S. producer of soup and spaghetti (1954 sales: $334 million) is moving into the frozen-food business in a big way. Campbell will take over Omaha's $100 million C. A. Swanson & Sons (TIME, Dec. 20), which sells a wide range of frozen chickens, dinners, pies, etc., by trading its shares for all Swanson stock, will operate it under the current Swanson management and brand name.

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