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Born 52 years ago in Winnipeg, Broker Housser made a Dominion name as a hockey star, first at Toronto's swank St. Andrew's College, later at the University of Toronto and then on Toronto's old St. George hockey team, amateur champions. He got his business start in Massey-Harris (farm implements), shifted to brokerage, setting up his own firm, now H. B. Housser & Co., in 1917. For years he had been a power in Exchange affairs, took an active hand in negotiating the merger that really made Toronto a miners' mart, played a big part in planning the new building to house it. At first he was disturbed by Architect S. H. Maw's modernism, for Broker Housser is rated a Solid Citizen with a wife, daughter and grown son, pride in his golf, a fondness for fishing and a natural leaning toward conservatism. The executive offices in his new building are period (Queen Anne and Georgian), but the president's office does have a highly functional bar adjoining. At home Harry Housser has to serve his guests himself because his two servants are Seventh Day Adventists who will have nothing to do with liquor.
Up until a few years ago H. B. Housser & Co. avoided mining issues like the plague. A director in such companies as Canada Foundries & Forgings and Stop & Shop Stores, Broker Housser found unspectacular industrials good enough to give him a city home on Warren Road, a country place in Thornhill, just outside Toronto. But with arrival of the mining boom, which has made speculation in Toronto as common a pastime as the cinema, H. B. Housser & Co. began to diversify. Harry Housser was one of the group which backed Kerr Addison, which in the past year went from a few cents a share to $5.
The Pennies. Nearly one-third of the 500 issues listed on the Toronto Exchange sell below $5 per share and scores are below $1. It is these "penny stocks" that account for the huge share-volume run up in daily trading. Toronto had a 5,000,000-share day last year, and a 1,000,000-share day is poor business. It is also the "pennies" that give Toronto its peculiar flavor. Bay Street (Toronto's Wall Street) and the surrounding district are not unlike any financial district in smaller U. S. centres. There are a Childs and a Savarin restaurant. Because hard liquor is banned in Ontario restaurants Toronto has developed a "Broker's Cocktail," a startling yet appropriate combination of beer and champagne. For in Toronto, the gap between beer and champagne may be extremely narrow and is frequently bridged on the pungent name of a northland mine. Last year the best bet among the pennies was O'Brien Gold which soared from 34¢ to $14. In the past few years MacLeod-Cockshutt climbed from 10¢ to $5.40; Pickle Crow from 50¢ to $9.20.
Every runner in Bay Street knows the story of the fun-loving Toronto broker who bought 20,000 shares of Continental Kirland at one-eighth of a cent per share to send to his friends as Christmas cards in big denomination certificates. After he had mailed every last certificate, the stock suddenly bounced to 80¢ per share, a 640-fold appreciation.