New Britain herald., 1930-12-31
MARKET ATTEMPTS
 COMEBACK IN VAIN
Stocks Unable to Regain Ground,
 Tumble Even Lower

New York, Dec. 30 P1 - The stock market painfully retraced its steps down the diminishing scale of share values during the past year to the point where its 1927-1929 ascent became steep and exciting.
 Desite injuries suffered in it's tumble from the 1929 peak, the market courageously resumed it's climb during early months of 1880, and actually had regained by April almost 60 per cent of the lost alti- tude, but in it's eagerness neglected to see gathering storm clouds of a major business depression.
 The market turned sharply down. ward in June, and as measured by share price indices, by December had rctraced it's steps to the general price level of the spring of 1927.
 The average price of rail shares reached level not seen in five years, while utilities fell back to prices of only about two and a half years ago.
 Although extreme depression of prices led 10 an assumption in many quarters that the so-called common stock era was at an end, statistics do not as yet support such a conclusion.
 Stock held in speculative broker age accounts has been drastically reduced in volume, but at the same time, lists of stockholders in indi- vidual corporations have increased to huge totals.
 Unwilling Investors
 It is probable that many specu- lators have become investors against their wishes, that is, that they have decided 10 pay for their stock in full and take it out of their brokers S hands with the determined intention of keeping it until it commands a price somewhere near that paid for it, no matter how long it may take.
 Brokers state, nevertheless, that a large section Of the public has profited from the experiences Of the past year and half, and now is rather than the top.
 The result has been a small but steady stream of odd lot purchases during periods of extreme pressure against prices.
 Still Double Values of '25
 A glance at the total quoted value Of stocks listed on the New York exchange shows that much remains of the great bull market which started in 1924.
 The latest figure, for December 1, 1880, shows a total quoted value of roughly s53,000O00,O0 While this shows a shrinkage of some 70 per cent from the peak reached in autumn of 1929, it is still about double the quoted value of all listed shares at the beginning of 1925.
 In further efforts to gain the wider distribution of their shares, more of the large corporations split up their stocks, and these splitups, together with the sharp shrinkage of values, reduced the average price per share of stock listed on the New York Exchange to less than $40, the lowest leNel Tn years.
 Turnover Smaller
 Trading was fairly heavy in the first half of the year, and the mar ket experienced one S,000.000 share day, but nothing comparable to the 12,000,0O0 and 16.000.000 share turnovers in Novem Der. 1929.
 The 1880 turnover on the stock exchange was about 810,00O,Q00 shares, against 1.l25, ,068,620 in 1929.
 The market all but faded out for a large number of issues traded in the curb market. The curb. further more, suffered from the sharp de- cline in common stock financing, since as a primary market it gener- ally introduces new shares.