WALL STREET: Every Man a Capitalist

• Share

(5 of 9)

Funston also worked hard on the exchange's internal and industry problems. He bolstered the exchange's research and statistical department, is now encouraging smaller member firms to pool resources to lease I.B.M machines and wire services, revamp their procedures in dozens of ways to help both themselves and their customers. When a fight flared up over extending trading hours past the usual 3 p.m. close, Funston characteristically ran a survey to find out what members wanted, finally pushed through a half-hour extension in 1952. But he made up for the extra work hours by closing the exchange on Saturday. With SEC approval, Funston also campaigned hard to boost commission rates for brokers, eventually convinced them by proving that many had been losing money on much of their business for years without knowing it; he started work on a $6,500,000 program to renovate and add to the 52-year-old exchange building at n Wall Street, give everyone a more comfortable, more efficient place to work.

His special pride and joy is his Monthly Investment Plan for small stockholders, the first exchange plan to permit people to buy stock on a pay-as-you-go basis. Like many of the other things Funston has done, the plan is the center of a controversy, and Funston is the first to admit that M.I.P. has gone slower than he expected. Some brokers feel that the market is high for small investors, that they would be wiser buying into a mutual plan with its diversified holdings, instead of concentrating on a single company. In defense, Funston points out that M.I.P.'s risks are minimized by dollar averaging, i.e., by putting the same amount into a stock at regular intervals, the buying prices average out in the market's ups and downs. Says he: "When we started the plan in 1954, industrial averages were at 290, and everyone said it was too high. Now the averages are at around 470."

To plug M.I.P. and the exchange, Funston made ten major speeches this year, traveled 9,000 miles across the U.S. and to Europe. His weekends are often booked solid months in advance, and during the week, the nights he gets home to his wife Betty and three children—Peggy, 13, Gail, 10, Keith Jr., 6—in time for 7 o'clock dinner are rare family occasions. Only then can he relax, have a few friends in for an evening's talk, read history, or pop corn with the family.

Despite his never-ending work, which President Roosevelt once described as "the worst job in the world next to mine," Funston usually seems calm and relaxed, gives no hint of the driving force that keeps him constantly on the move. A friend said: "Funston was a guy who had success on his mind, right from the start. I think he was thoroughly devoted to the idea that an awfully good place to start business was at the top."