Comeback for Steel

The big bull market, which showed signs of faltering early last week, bounded back at week's end, and pushed the Dow-Jones industrial average up to another alltime high of 394.94, a solid 4.86 points above the week before. Among the leaders were Douglas Aircraft, up 5 1/8 one day, and 9 the next, to 113; Houston Oil and Mid-Continent Petroleum each rose more than 7 points. The market was also given a big boost as steel production climbed to 82.1% of capacity, a 1954 peak. Bethlehem went up 9 3/8 points for the week, to 104 1/8; U.S. Steel rose 2 1/2, to 70 3/4.

One reason for the boost in steelmaking was heavy orders from the automakers. The nationwide rush to buy new cars was the biggest in years. General Motors' sales for the first ten days of December were higher than any other ten-day sales in the company's history. To keep up with its customers' demands, Ford set a new production record of 6,058 cars a day, and Chrysler Corp. has already received some 450,000 orders. For all automakers the week's production hit 172,249, highest figure in 19 months.

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