Renaissance

The broad smiles that wreathed Wall Street last autumn returned one afternoon last week. Four tokens of a renaissance in the stock market had made their appearance:

U. S. Steel common touched 139%, a new high for all time. General Motors common came within two points of its high (150).

Thirty other stocks reached high levels for the year. A Stock Exchange seat brought a new-record price of $155,000--which was $6,000 higher than the last sale; $5,000 higher than the last record.

Discussing these matters on the golf course over the weekend, even crabbed gentlemen whose putting was way off were forced to admit that steel is still industry's best barometer. Of the General Motors rise they could point out that it was based on a report from Detroit that retail auto sales in May had unprecedentedly outstripped sales in April, but that this report was based, in turn, upon unusually late motoring weather. The 30 other stocks were, however, indubitable evidence of the bankers' determination to make a market. And the higher-than-ever seat price could not be discounted as a phenomenon of supply and demand. The majority of seat buyers lately has not consisted of youngsters experimenting with their patrimony or carrying on a family tradition, but of the shrewdest, toughmindedest, kind of traders and market students, and of keen younger men enlisted and financed by the old houses to cope with voluminous business, present and future.