Small Fry

Who buys stocks? To find out, the Chicago office of Hornblower & Weeks surveyed the 10,000 customers it served last year. Findings: 1) 51% of the customers had incomes of less than $7,500 a year; 2) 49.9% of all transactions fell in the "little fellow" category (i.e., were for less than $1,000); 3) 74% of the trading was done in "cheap" stocks (less than $20).

Since this and previous surveys showed that there were more small investors in the market than most brokers had thought, Hornblower & Weeks last week opened a new $100,000 office in Chicago designed chiefly for...

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