Douglas daily dispatch., 1928-03-11

NEW YORK, March 10 lP) - The
battle OF billions" as Wall street has
characterized the titanic struggle be-
tween opposing speculative forces on
the floor of the New York stock ex-
change this Week, was conducted with
such fury today that all Saturday
trading records were broken. Total
sales for the two-hour session were
2,198,100 shares, contrasting with the
previous record Of 1881 900 shares on
Feb. Is last.
Bear" traders, aided by an enormous
volume of profit-taking, succeeded in
checking the rise in General Motors.
U. S. Steel, Hudson Motors and some
of the other pool favorites, but they
took another terrific beating in the
common stock of the Radio Corpora
ton, which scared $14 a share to a
new record at $121.75, and closed $1.25
a share below the top price. Radio
with a turnover of 425,0OO shares, took
the speculative spotlight away from
General Motors, which touched new
high record for the seventh consecu-
tive, session at $161 snare and then
slipped back to $157.75, or 81 a share
N~AOW JNoCNAk1y AA11d1 NQOVClb1O1l.
Although todays final quotations
disclosed a preponderance of net de-
clineS, the sharp rise in Radio, West
inghouse Electric, Baldwin and one or
two other stocks used in the Associated
Press compilation of 40 leading indus
trial shares" carried the average for
that group up 11-100ths of one point
to within 9-100ths of a point of the
record high for all time established
on the first trading day of this year.
The battle of financial giants start
ed with the sounding of the opening
gong. 1t was like a poker game with
blocks of 1000, 10000 and $4,000 shares
representing the white, red and blue
chips Radio opened with a block of
$4,000 shares at STA a share, an over
night gain of $6.25 a share and Cen
eral Motors with block of 10000
shares at $160 a share, a gain of 25c
share above the previous transac-
ton. These individual transactions
represented a money turnover of $2,-
100000 and $3,2OO,O 900, respectively.
Then followed: another block of 5000
General Motors at the spread price,
of 1904 to 16034. The first sale of
U. S. Steel common was block OF
$500 shares at 1461s to 1861, followed
by an advance to 1852, drop to 144A
and 3 rally to 1448715, where it clos
ed for net loss of SOC a share on the
day. During the remainder of the
session, individual sales of 1000 to 15,-
600 shares were quite frequent, with
steady strings of transactions on the
tape RUNNING into thousands of shares.
Radio, in which there is powerful
''pool' reported to be headed by Arthur
w. Cutten of Chicago and the Fisher
Brothers of Detroit, was widely tipped
around brokerage houses as the 'pest
bet" of the day. Specialists in the
stock, nearing exhaustion from week
of unprecedented activity, struggled
frantically to execute the orders which
came pouring in from all sections of
the country. The stock reacted from
the opening of ia to III as 'bear"
traders put out new short lines. Seat
ed around tickers in the private rooms
of brokerage houses sat the pool man
ayers, figuratively giving the harassed
"bears" more dope on which to hang
Suddenly, fresh flood of new buy
ing orders were thrown into the market
and the stock swung back to lit,
swayed back and forth for whiley
then climbed to 119. A temporary
pause and then the word came back
from the floor that "120 was bid for
radio" another flood of selling, a fresh
wave of buying, and Radio was "121