Wall St staggers
1970Peter Jeffries Read the scan at ETOL (PDF) →Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: headlines and words can be misread, and a caption or advert can run into the text. For anything you quote, read the scan.
Chains
national walk-out PICKETS were out yesterday at Parkinson Shipley Yorkshire branch of Reynold Chains at the start of an official pieceworkers' strike for an improvement in the 10s increase in bonus offered by the management.
The new bonus scheme has been under discussion for the last year.
At the end of negotiations at York the management was given 21 days to make an improved offer and this period has now expired.
The present rate for an apprentice - trained setteroperator on piecework is £21 for a 40-hour week. WITH THE Dow Jones index showing a loss of 19 points at the end of last week and other indicators pointing to continued inflation along with declining production, there is little confidence on Wall St that the dramatic rally of the previous week can be sustained.
During that week, following President Nixon's talk with top business leaders, the share index leapt by nearly 80 points from its seven year low Now the market is down below 700, for long considered its absolute 'floor' by many investors.
Latest figures show a decline in new factory orders for April, a decline in new construction projects and estimates that capital spending is unlikely to rise during the current year.
They all indicate that the recession is continuing to bite. But at the same time inflation continues unabated.
Wage control Thomas Wilson, IBM chair man, has added his voice to those demanding some form of wage and prices control.
Lack of confidence in Wall St's recent revival is stimulated by viction that some the largest institutional investors are deliberately manipulating the market in order te make gains at the expense of the small investor.
There is no doubt that some of the largest brokerage houses have made considerable gains during -the recent steep decline in share prices.
Selling
They have done so through the technique of 'short selling'-still perfectly legal under Securities and Exchange Commission regulestors borrow Large investors stock which they then sell at current prices, wait for the market to fall, buy back the stock at its lower price and pocket the difference.
In other words the largest financiers are preparing to nake money out of the crash just as J. P. Morgan and the other large bankers made fortunes through the Wall St slump after 1929.
B.M.A. and Election On It is the small man, with his life savings sunk into stock, who faces ruin.
Lacking the resources to manipulate the market, he is being driven to sell by these same bankers who are demanding the selling of stocks to repay outstanding loans.
But whatever its week-byweek fluctuations, the general trend of the market must be down.
The stock values built up since the war now represent grossly inflated paper values.
Only by a wiping out of these values, together with a drive to extract more and more surplus value from the labour of the working class can the rate of profit be restored.