State of Trade

That breezy little Scot B. (for Bertie) C. (Charles) Forbes went back to 1928 to find anything like it, but the nation's storekeepers were glad to chant: "The best holiday trade since 1930." Christmas shopping in Washington started ten days earlier and was 30%, ahead of last year. Two big Atlanta department stores reported their business up 25%. In Memphis and Dallas there were merchants who were rubbing their hands over 50%, increases. Toy buying in Chicago was the best since boom days. And sober estimates last week placed the probable dollar volume of holiday buying 16%, above a year ago and the actual volume of goods abreast of 1929.

Even before Thanksgiving the tills were ringing cheerily. Sears, Roebuck's November sales were 7% ahead of 1933. Montgomery Ward rang up the best November in five years. Many a chainstore reported gains of 10% or more. Chevrolet sold 50,000 cars to consumers last month-- top figure for November since 1926 when an all-time high was established. Walgreen Co. (drugstore chain) reported the best November in history.

Behind the blare of retail trade marched the solid indices of industry. Electric power output last week was 8% above the same week of 1933 and last fortnight touched a 200-week high. Steel production inched upward for the eighth consecutive week to 32.7% of capacity. That still meant losses for the industry but the price of scrap steel, a good key to steel's future, jumped to $13 per ton, up $3 from the autumn low. Building supply companies, aided by the Government's remodeling drive, reported sales up as much as 150%. American Telephone & Telegraph added 16,000 telephones in November as against 5,000 in the corresponding period of 1933. For the full year A. T. & T. will probably show a net station gain of 300,000 as compared to a loss in 1933 of 600,000. Even U. S. mints boomed last month, striking 77,000,000 coins as against 3,000,000 in November 1933.

How much of the current upward surge is due to the Government's truce with Business no man can say. Nevertheless, Dun & Bradstreet last week found the state of trade and sentiment so strong that they thought it foreshadowed a business revival "without parallel in modern commercial history for the abruptness of its rise and the intensity of its pursuance."

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