Chicken Licken
FLAPPING AND squawking, the Boston Chicken flies high over Wall Street. Why did it cross the road? Because every specu- lator and small share buyer was rushing after it and grabbing at its tail-feathers before it could get to the other side. Brought to the market at $20, Boston Chicken shares opened at $48. I asked my man on the Street what was so special about this new company. 'They sell chick- ens,' he told me. 'It's been done before.' That is good enough when, as now, newly- issued shares account for almost a third of the New York Stock Exchange's turnover. There could be no plainer sign that in the world's biggest market, the speculators are on the feed. They have pulled their money out of its unrewarding existence in the American banks, it has driven up the price of shares and bonds, it has spilled out into other markets, old and new, across the world — our own included — and now it is chasing after chickens. This is either a mature or an immature market, depending on your use of language. Either way, I begin to wonder what will happen when the chicken-chasers lose their appetites. It would certainly put our markets off their feed. The moral, as so often, comes from Belloc:
Rise from table feeling you could still Eat something more and not be really ill.
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