Over the Top

After a month-long rise, Wall Street's bounding bull market passed a notable milestone last week. As the week began, stocks on the Dow-Jones industrial average drove beyond the 500 mark for the first time in history. Yet the record stood only overnight. Confident investors continued to push stock up day after day. By week's end Dow-Jones industrials stood at 507.60, up 9.76 points for the week.

Wall Street's confidence last week was echoed throughout the U.S. economy. The Federal Reserve's annual Survey of Consumer Finances showed that people never felt better about their economic prospects, planned to buy record, or near record amounts of almost everything. Of 2,800 families sampled, a peak of 9.6% planned to buy new houses, 8.2% planned to buy new cars, 28% were in the market for furniture or major appliances, and 22.6% were planning sizable home improvements.

But the biggest vote of confidence came from U.S. businessmen themselves. In what he called "the best economic news of the year," Commerce Secretary Sinclair Weeks announced that U.S. business will spend a record $35 billion to expand plants and production in 1956, or 22% more than igss's previous high of $28.7 billion.

Among the biggest spenders is the oil industry. With 1955 earnings of $262 million (up $36 million over 1954), Texas Co. Chairman J. S. Leach announced that his company would spend $325 million this year for new petrochemical plants, refineries and research centers. Close behind, Gulf Oil, Standard of Ohio and

Standard of California tacked on new projects for cracking plants worth another $70 million. Still another was Sinclair Oil, which turned a profit of $80 million in 1955 (some 8% better than 1954), and plans a huge expansion program. Since 1951, Sinclair has spent $750 million on capital improvement. Said Sinclair's President P. C. Spencer: "Our estimate of the future offers no prospect that such expenditures will be less over the next five years. They may well be substantially greater."

For the booming rubber industry, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Chairman P. W. Litchfield announced the biggest expansion program in his company's history: $114 million to increase production both at home and abroad. In the U.S. new plants and machines will boost production of tires, foam rubber, aircraft products, flooring and chemicals, while overseas new Goodyear tire plants will spring up in Scotland, Colombia, Venezuela and the Philippines. Said Litchfield, noting Goodyear's record 1955 sales of $1.3 billion and $59 million profit: "Our plants, both in this country and abroad, have all been operating at full capacity during the past year, and this is continuing into 1956. We look for continued general prosperity."

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