WALL STREET: Grass-Roots Broker

Though brokers moaned that expenses were so high they could hardly earn their carfare, the nation's biggest brokerage house last week turned in a rosy annual report. Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Beane (variously known to gagsters as "We, the People," "The Thundering Herd," "All This and Fenner, Too") did 9.4% of the round lot (blocks of 100 shares) trading on the New York Stock Exchange in 1948, and 12.9% of the odd-lot (less than 100 shares) business. It made a net profit of $1,704,513. This was nearly three times as much as it made in 1947. For Merrill...

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