U.S. Business: Wall Street: A Long Look Upward

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Despite the market's overall malaise, investors can still do very nicely through careful shopping. "This is a 20% market," says lohn Zeisler, a Chicago broker. "One out of every five stocks is still going up." Along with the onics, there are other swinging investment areas. One is education, where a teaching revolution in methods and televised or computerized machinery is under way. Crowell-Collier has risen from 45½ to 51⅜, McGraw-Hill from 66¼ to 69, while shares of IBM, counting a three-for-two split and a new issue in May, have increased in value 5.1%. Recreation is big on Wall Street. And Polaroid, which has gone from 130¼ to 171½ since February, is its high flag. Even the money-spending programs of the Great Society offer opportunity to the selective investor: thus, medicare has injected new strength into drug and hospital-supply company stocks. Becton, Dickinson & Co. is up from 59 to 72¾.

Firmer Stance. What does the future hold for the market? Some pessimists say that the average will plop into the low 700s and stay there for a long while; corollary to this theory is the idea that some time next year the U.S. economy will suffer a recession.

No one can say flatly that this will not happen, but it seems unlikely. After the 1966 elections are over in November, the Johnson Administration can be expected to take a more definite stance on fiscal policy; this should put an end to some of the uncertainty that has been depressing the market. Moreover, many investors feel that the blue chips have gone down by about as much as they ever will. Take the testimony of Judson Sayre, retired vice president of Borg, Warner, who now spends his time investing for himself in a quiet office in Chicago's Merchandise Mart. Sayre has done very well on growth stocks, reputedly has made $1,000,000 on Xerox and Syntex. Last week Sayre bought 5,000 shares of Pennsylvania Railroad, and he intends to pay more attention to other blue chips. Says he: "They have all their future in front of them."

The future, after all, is what the stock market is really about. And in their offices in the financial canyon of lower Manhattan, James Thomson and his Thundering Herd constantly ponder the possibilities of tomorrow, next month, next year and next decade. In their own expansion plans, Thomson & Co. are betting heavily on a bright market future. "The biggest problem facing Merrill Lynch right now," says Thomson, "is to be in a position to handle bigger volume when it comes. And we believe it is coming."