Business & Finance: Bankers v. Panic

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By Tuesday morning the suspicion that there might be a panic had turned to the apprehension that there was a panic. With the market failing to show even the usual closing rally, it appeared that Messrs. Lamont, Mitchell and their associates had been content to witness a liquidation that might technically be termed orderly but was certainly extremely depressing.*

Tuesday brought also a quota of cheerful utterances. Said T. B. Macauley, president of the Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada (one of the largest of institutional stock-buyers) : "The present crisis in the stock market squeezes out inflation caused by speculation, and we have taken opportunity largely to increase our holdings, and we are still buying." Said Chase National's Albert Wiggin: "None of the corporations or institutions I am connected with is selling stocks at this time. We are buying." President Hoover said that U. S. Industry was on a sound basis. The banking group also met again Monday evening and on Tuesday was again quoted as standing firmly (bulls thought at a safe distance) behind the market.

When Tuesday came, nobody could make any sense of performances on the stock exchange, where the almost incredible number of 16,338,000 shares of U. S. Industry & Commerce were dumped as if they were so much junk. The day's transactions, including odd lots and other exchanges, undoubtedly exceeded 30,000.-ooo shares. Necessity, perhaps, but not Reason ruled.

That nearly every stock was at bargain prices by any modern economic standard was best shown by the fact that very soundest stocks were selling at ten times current earnings and many a stock such as that of the General Motors Corp. reached a point where it was only five or six times current earnings. And General Motors, according to the once unchallenged statement of John J. Raskob, should sell at 15 times earnings. Quite aside from their relation to earnings many stocks sold at a point where their actual yield in dividends was higher than the yield of bonds. The following were typical of stocks which were purchased at a price to yield in dividends between 8% and 10%: Anaconda Copper, Bethlehem Steel, Chrysler, General Foods, General Motors, Kennecott Copper, Sinclair Oil.

Such stocks as American Telephone, Baltimore & Ohio, Canadian Pacific, New York Central, Standard Oil of New Jersey, U. S. Steel, Westinghouse, all sold at some time to yield between 4% and 6%.