The nation's overburdened stock markets called time out last week, but investors didn't seem to hear the whistle. Stock exchanges and the over-the-counter market took a one-day holiday to let brokerage houses attack a mountain of paperwork that has swamped clerical staffs. The shutdown was the first of three consecutive Wednesday closings to be followed by a similar non-trading day on Friday, July 5.
When the markets opened last Thursday, a burst of trading toppled volume records not only on both major stock exchanges but also, by brokers' estimates, in the over-the-counter market. On the New York Stock Exchange, volume soared to an all-time peak of 21,350,000 shares. It was the third time since April 1 that Big Board turnover had reached new heights, eclipsing by ever-increasing margins the 39-year-old record of 16,410,000 shares traded on Oct. 29, 1929, when the market suffered its worst crash. On the American Stock Exchange, a center of speculation that worries many brokers, volume surged to a new high of 10,810,000 shares.
Bedlam. In the over-the-counter market, which operates by telephone, the pace grew frantic enough to overstrain physical facilities and disrupt trading. "It's absolute bedlam," said one dealer whose entire switchboard lit up at once. "We just pulled all the cords out and started fresh." Other brokers encountered long delays reaching marketmakers. Such tie-ups often hurt investors, as prices rise before their orders can be placed. Goodbody & Co. stopped giving quotations and White, Weld & Co. halted its over-the-counter operations an hour before the new and foreshortened 3:30 p.m. official closing time. Despite all the activity, most indexes showed that stock prices fell slightly last week; the Dow-Jones industrial average slipped 1.26 points to close at 913.62. Many brokers dismissed the declines as a mere pause before a traditional summer rally.
The paperwork snarl—by a considerable margin the worst in Wall Street history—began when President Johnson's Viet Nam peace moves sent stocks on a spring spree. Since April 1, Big Board trading has averaged 14 million shares a day, up 40% from the first quarter. The smaller American Exchange has been hit by a 50% increase to 7,500,000 shares a day. In consequence, brokers have been unable to deliver stock certificates to customers within the allotted five business days after they are bought or sold. Compounded by increasing clerical errors, the discrepancies and slippages by last week had reached a point where an estimated $4.5 billion worth of undelivered stock was caught in the clotted pipelines. "There aren't enough people, there's not enough space and there's not enough equipment to cope with the volume," said Partner Paul Tobin of the Manhattan brokerage firm of Paine, Webber, Jackson & Curtis.