The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1953-12-26
Stocks Mostly
Approach 1854
With Surprising
Bounce ahead
BY RAIDER wINeEr

AP Newfesfures
NEW YORK This was the year
of war and peace and bear mar
ket in Wall Street.
But the stocks of leading Amer
lean corporations survived ii all
and approached the end of 1883
with a surprising bounce ahead.
/ There are some 2,3o0 stocks of
corporations listed for trading on
the New York Stock Exchange and
the American Stock Exchange in
New York plus hundreds more list
ed on regional exchanges at Tor
onto and Chicago and San Fran
cisco and elsewhere.
That, broadly. is what Is known
- The Stock Market with the
stocks owned by millions OF Am
orleans and candsdians and trad
Cd freely on the exchanges.
The value Of all stocks listed for
trading on the New York Stock Ex-
change, for example, comes to bet.
ter than III billion dollars at cur.
rent prices. The net decline in that
total since the first of the year has
been less than 8 per cent.
That is a good measure of the
overall stability of the stock mar
ket during the trying times of 1858.
Naturally some stocks reacted vic.
llently during the year and now
show wide gains or losses as COM
pared with a year ago.
! Those individual reactions rep
I resent fhe adjustment that the
economy Of the nation itself has
| gone through in meeting the re.
sponsibilities Of war and the
challenge OF peace.
And what about the great bear
market? Well, we are in il now, at
least technically, and we have
been all year, it seems.
A bear market is one that fol-
lows a long-term downward trend.
A bull market, on the other hand,
is one that follows a long-term up
ward trend. They got their colorful
names from newspaper cartoons
showing bulls and bears fighting
without quarter in Wall Street.
The symbol grew to be a raging
bull goring savagely fighting fall
len bear.
But you must look at this years
bear market against the big pic
tvrs Of the stock market. Every
/ one knows how the stock market
cracked and crashed In 1879 and
continued plvnsins down until
1897. That was . bear market
without parallel in history. There
followed . fivs-Year bull marker
and another five years of bear
market Feadivstmeni.
In 1912 the bull market of the
war years began. It ended in 1916.
A broad readjustment of the mar
ket then continued until 1919 when
the bull market movement was re-
sumed.
Hindsight now tells us that this
bull market continued right on to
January, 1853. The peak of this
year came early in January when
the traditional year end rally and
the Eisenhower election boom in
the mrket petered out.
u Is difficult to select one
single thing that causes the mar
ket to rise or fall in any given
period, because you have hun.
drsds Of stocks all under diverse
influences and flueiuafins in the
bewildeying aspect of . swarm Of
fireflios on . summer night.
The Administrators hard money
policy, which later was eased, had
a depressing effect. But there was
the offsetting factor of easier gov
eminent controls on business. Mar
gin requirements also were lower
ed, enabling you to buy stocks with
smaller amount of your own
cash. The effects Of such develop
'ments, however, never show i'm
mediately in stock prices.
1t was the fortunes of war in
Korea that banged the market
down. The first big fall started
late in March when the Chinese
Reds proposed swapping prisoners.
There was a minor measure of re.
covery from that shock before the
market dropped even lower during
a period of uncertainty over the
Korean truce. Again a recovery set
in only to be cut short by the most
severe plunge yet, starting in mid
August after the Korean truce ac-
tually was signed.
Why did people rush to sell
their stocks and thus force prices
down7
Basically, 1t was because they
feared the uncertainties of the eco
nomic future. They didn't know
what peace would bring, and they
rushed to shift their investments
into industries that would benefit
by peace. they wanted to get out
of war stocks they wanted the ha-
ven Of cash money in the bank.
The market hit botfnn in mid.