WALL STREET: Ten Million Capitalists

The U.S. now has 8,630,000 stockholders in publicly held companies, one-third more than four years ago. So New York Stock Exchange President Keith Funston announced this week, after a survey of 6,000 corporations, brokerage firms, banks and trust companies. With another 1,400,000 persons owning shares in privately held corporations, there are now more than 10 million stockholders in the nation, one out of every ten U.S. adults.

Last year more than 1,000,000 new stockholders were added to the list. Reasons: partial tax relief on corporate dividends, growing popularity of stock purchase plans, vigorous selling of stocks by investment companies. The...