WALL STREET: The Winchell Market

"Wall Streeters," boasted Hearst Gossipist Walter Winchell last week, "are calling the current rise of many stocks a Walter Winchell Market." The truth was less impressive than Winchell's fiction. For the past few months, on his Sunday night radio-TV broadcast, Winchell has been as full of tips as a market newsletter. The Securities Exchange Commission, which questioned the sources of his tip-stering several years ago, but retreated when Winchell pleaded "freedom of the press," is not officially concerned with his latest interest. Winchell has assured the SEC that he does not receive payment for giving advice. But many an amateur investor who followed his advice would have been better off if he had stayed away from his radio or TV set. Sample Winchell tips:

¶ The "biggest oil strike in North American history ... may be confirmed tomorrow by Amurex Oil Development Co.," broadcast Winchell last April. Amurex, which closed the Friday before at 14⅞, opened the Monday after his broadcast at 20⅞. Since then, it has dropped as low as 10¼:, is now at 13⅜;, more than 7¼ points below its post-Winchell price.

¶ After Winchell said the Missouri Pacific Railroad (TIME, Feb. 15) would make "market news," the preferred stock opened Monday at 51, 5½ points higher than its pre-broadcast closing. It rose to 54¼, but is now back to 48⅞, down 2⅛ points after Winchell's tip.

¶ Last month Winchell plugged Universal Consolidated Oil, the company drilling on 20th Century-Fox's Hollywood lot. When the stock opened Monday at 67, it was up 5¾ points from its Friday closing. Now it is down to 63 again, a four-point loss for anybody who bought on Winchell's advice.

Many a Winchell tip is simply picked off the news wire, is "exclusive" only because no major Sunday afternoon papers are published in the U.S. Thus when Howard Hughes announced his offer to buy all RKO stock on a Saturday afternoon (TIME, Feb. 15), Winchell broadcast the news which dailies carried Monday morning. Next day the stock rose 2¾ points, thanks to Hughes's offer—not to Winchell's tip. Last week Winchell breathlessly peddled another hot market tip: "Another tremendous oil strike 60 miles south of Ely, Nevada." But the "news" had no effect on the market; Shell Oil Co. itself had announced the oil strike two weeks before (TIME, March 1).