High Point

New orders, a key chart to the future course of business, last week broke through to new alltime high ground. The Department of Commerce reported that new orders received in March soared to an adjusted total of $30 billion, up from $29.7 billion in February and $24.8 billion a year ago. Following new orders up, manufacturers' sales hit a post-recession peak of $29.1 billion. The backlog of unfilled orders on which manufacturers will continue to operate comfortably rose another $1 billion to $50.1 billion, highest since December 1957.

Backing up the bulge in factory business was a new surge in consumer buying. April car sales were around 500.000, best month since June 1957. March housing starts rose 44% over 1958 to 122.237. Sales of household appliances picked up speed. Television set sales moved up 4% ahead of March 1958. while radio set sales for the first quarter ran 40% ahead of last year.

Consumers could afford to buy more because their incomes were up. The Commerce Department reported that compensation of employees in the first quarter jumped to an annual rate of $265.5 billion, up $7.1 billion over the rate in the final quarter of 1958 and almost $15 billion ahead of the recession low in the second quarter of 1958. With more cash coming in. consumers, who held back on time buying during the recession, felt increasingly in the mood to buy more on credit. The total volume of installment credit outstanding rose to a new post-recession peak only slightly under $34 billion.

Some rough spots remained. New York department stores, in the second week of a strike by package deliverers, skipped reporting sales to the Federal Reserve Bank, but for the nation as a whole the Fed reported that steadily rising department store sales for the week ending April 25 were 4% ahead of 1958.

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