Business & Finance: Spotty

Since war's end, the stock market has been a faulty barometer of business activity, but a fair guide to what businessmen are thinking. In 1946 everyone expected a slump, and the market cracked wide open —yet for two years there was no slump in business.

Last week Wall Streeters took a speculative look at the slump that had finally arrived, and decided it was not living up to their gloomy expectations. Result: the market's seventh bullish week in the last eight. The Dow-Jones industrial average rose 3.15 points to 179.07, only a shade below its 1949 high.

Less Work. Nevertheless, there was little...

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