Word: walls
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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After months of slow leak, the rest of the air went out of Wall Street last week-and it went with a whistle. In five days of heavy trading, stocks on the New York Stock Exchange lost $8.7 billion of their value. Thursday was the worst. As 3,300,000 shares changed hands, the Dow-Jones industrial average plummeted 9.69 points, the rail average 4.59 points in the sharpest break since Oct. 10. 1955, the week after President Eisenhower's heart attack. Though a strong surge on Friday checked the losses, the attrition left the market average...
Taxes & Satellites. Searching for reasons, Wall Street's traders had almost as many opinions as voices. Among other technical reasons for the break, they talked of a sudden burst of heavy selling to establish tax losses against gains made earlier, forced selling on margin accounts as prices declined beyond what traders could bear. Underlying all was the growing uncertainty about the course of the U.S. economy, and indeed the nation itself. Early announcements that the U.S. would not embark on a crash program to catch Soviet Russia's earth satellite had a depressing effect. Investors were increasingly worried...
Many experts who originally expected the market to establish a floor at the 450 level only to see it tumble another ten points thought that it might slip as far as 430 on the average before starting back up. Said Harry Comer, market analyst for Wall Street's Paine, Webber, Jackson & Curtis: "Last week's unloading was not yet the old-fashioned selling climax which paves the way for a subsequent rise...
Consumers & Profits. Yet the market slump did not seem to bear much relationship to the economy as a whole. Despite Wall Street's bearishness. the U.S. consumer is buying more than ever. Estimates of 1957 retail business as a whole put the totals at a record $200 billion, up $8.5 billion from 1956'$ peak. Construction volume in September rose to $4.6 billion, up 4% over a year earlier. And the first earnings reports for 1957's third quarter showed that companies were still making record profits. American Telephone & Telegraph and International Business Machines both posted new highs...
Pressure. The heart of the truckers' case was an apparent effort by the rails to block interstate trucking in the heavily industrial Northeast by erecting a "Chinese wall'' around Pennsylvania. The wall was Pennsylvania's 45,000-lb. limit on truck loads, second lowest in the U.S. and at least 13,000 Ibs. under surrounding states. Though the Pennsylvania legislature in 1951 boosted the limit to 60,000 Ibs., Governor John Fine vetoed the bill largely because of pressure brought to bear by ostensibly grass-roots citizens' organizations for tax reform and highway safety...