Variety (Sep 1933)

Tuesday, September 26, 1933 PICT E S VARIETY 23 Stock Market (Continued from page 6) Bpicuously weak, but on extremely small volume. Bontls did very lit- tle, to give a hint. of what was gov. Ing on behind che scenes, Warners debentures gained a full point com- pared with mlnar pi-ice movements. elaewJiere. Dampening of Inflation hopes was largely disregarded, ex- cept that gilt edge liens displayed a better undertone. Tough Picki Bulls on the financial front last ^eek kept up a bold front in erf-, pressing views of the nearby pros- pects, but. to 'tape riders there were danger signals. (Jhief among them was the. fact thaj/when sell- ing dried up on Friday after a; dras- tic shake-out of the day before, prices showed only ability to rhake a modest recovery. ^ If the speculative background haij had most .or . even any of the ele- ments iof stability paraded in mar- kiet pronouncements the rebound ought to have developed a better follow-through than it did. This was" eminently true of the active amusements which. lately' have, been holding a course fairly typical of the whole body of stocks—that. is to say advancing with the general movement iand retreating when the whole mass of equities took the downgrade. ' ■ Loew'g, for instance, gave way under rather heavy dealings from above 36 to 30 flat on Thursday, about held its own on the Friday rally and by the Saturaa,y close had pushed ahead to 32%. Ordinarily regaining of nearly half a tWo-day loss would be regarded as favorable under the circumstances, but it was conspicuously itrue that the decline Was accompanied by major volume and the recovery attended by small turnover. In other words, from the tape observer's angle, the drop was characterized by the hasty, re tlrement of rather heavy holders, while the recovery was probably ac- complished by an operating clique who found It easy to make prog- ress because the major liquidation had about cleared up the stock that was hanging over the market. Small Volume made it obvious that there was very little opposi tlon to the mark-up and it did seem that a really aggressive campaigh could have accomplished a good deal. more. It was evident that lioew's performance in defending the critical 30 level had not car .Tied much conviction to traders. At least the- turnaround attracted very little following. For ten days before the setback Loew's had stood out of a listless market for its abil- ity to go forward a&ainst lack of animation In Important issues and positive weakness in a few pivotal stocks like Steel. Going along with the general view that the bulk of dealings recently have been by professional floor traders, it would seem likely -that, these alert in^and-outers .would have been prompt to give a play to a stock that had demonstrated its abilitv to gain- ground. Instead, .Ijoew's and Its _ associated shares ' cbuia'galh but little "momeufum ex cept such as was Imparted by its clique sponsors. Warners Turns Quiet Warner Bros, manifested similar characteristics. On the downside it had been averaging more than 20, 000 shares a full session. On Sat- urday's mild advance its turnover was around 4.000, a falling off in transactions that couldn't be en tirely assigned to the short trading day. The slide fromi 9 to 7 was CHAMBERLAIN CHAIN'S PROSPECTS LOOK UP marked by heavy dealings, the face about by dull trading. It is true that the cliques probably would have found difficulty in staging a strong demonstration in a situation marked by all around hesitahcyi and it is possible their strategy was to forego a special grand-standing at- this time to wait until a real push, would be more in accord with gen- eral., trading sentiment. At any rate amusements displayed about as much vitality as most stocks and net losses for the week were not, important, the largeist be- ing a decline of about ,3 in Loew's. Certainly so far their position has not been greatly impaired for a later drive,,flay when the late autumn has disclosed revehue possibilities in freer public spending. In this respect one of the market information agencies points Out a favorable element in the amusement situation that does not exist in its counterpart, general retail sellings Point is that the picture companies are geared to make a rapid ini prove- ment. Overhead of theatre, opera- tion is relatively fixed.' It costs al- most as much to run a halt-filled theatre as it does to run one crowded. With a rapid increase in attendance the theatres, 'vyhich are the real sore spot in the industry, would clinib out of the red swiftly because, the added income is prac- tically all net. The authority cited advances the idea chat,,80% of in- creased gross from" the level of a few wfeeks ago could be carried to net; Difference, between the theatres and a merchandiser or any other sort of goods, is" that in one case with each new purchaser the, margin of profit is all that counts. Every- time a haberdasher sells, an addi-r tionai,! hat, he has to charge him- self the cost of the article while an additional customer at the box of- fice above a . certain level .costs the theatre nothing. Above, the ., even break, the industry could advance very swiftly into black ink arid the 'Biiy Now*^ campaign is a made to order situation for the theatre's re-,, covery. Bonds Inclined to Lag A new situation appeared to be in. the making among amusement bonds. Developments of the week In, the course of exchange fluctua- tions and in Government quarters, rather' put ^a Hamper on Inflation hopes. The retreat from gilt-edge bonds was halted abruptly and these prime issues staged a striking re- covery. As a natural result of this, move- ment there was a general disposi- tion to turn cold on speculative liens in wliich the buying had been sub- stantial while inflation propaganda held the spotlight. Amusement ob- ligations enjoyed very little of the recovery that took place, late last week in the best grade liens due to the fact that their rating is very low and .the-only incentive . to ,buy.. them lies In Inflation oh a scale suf- ficient to solve the problems of hard pressed, major picture companies. These, considerations apparently led to a considerable selling of Warners debentures which had been aggres- sively advanced. Eveu Loew's bonds lost favor and dropped 4 points —^a wider drop than the same con- cern's equities. Paramount Famous 6's gave way by i% points and in most cases there was no parallel among bonds to the Saturday up- turn among comraon stocks. Senior stocks followed the same course as bonds although there ,was not enough sales volume here to give the retreat much significance. Pottsville, Pa., rospects of stockholders in the Chamberlain Amusement Enter- prises, Inc., a corporiition operat- ing a , chain of coal region theatres until, a year or two ago, are irh- proving^ In March, 1,930, when a bill of equity asking for the appointment, of ia receiver was filed, the com- pany's debts, including a ihortgage bond issue and accrued Interest. of $7i30,383r and it $300,000 .mortgage held in Philadelphia, were iiveri as. $1,228,383. Other obligations ran total debt to over ?l,300,000. The preferred stock, $8;24,p00. was apparently wiped out by the enor- mous debt, but after three and one- half years of effort the preferred stockholders' situation is. reported to be better. The "Victoria Enterprises!, Inc., which, new company took, oyer the Chamberlain theatres, Is now abr solute owner , of six houses. The only debt against them Is'the $750,- 000 mortgage held by the Pennsyl- vania Trust Gompariy, Heading. The interest oh this amount has been paid. Through this arirahge-' ment, the reorganization of the Chamberlain interests in < new company, the debt has been cut al- most $000,000. "STearly payments on the mortgage, $76,000 under the origlhal tei'ms, have been reduced to $15,000 a year, thus giving tho, hew bompany 10 years' leeSvay in which to get on its feet. The pay- ments of principal of the mortgage debt will not be due for 10 years. Incorporations Ssicramento, Fictitious Firm NnmejB , InterntitlonMl',Screcn.-Aiii^io.. Hal Clvas- noCf and S'neririart KornUluni.,.' Arthur' sUber ,A|ccncy,.. Arthur Sllber. Permits to S9II Stock Jasued "To 'Parafrah Theatres. I.<!a8liigr. .Corpora- tion.. Theatre operatlngr. To' Issue .lO of 1,000 shares, par 100. Strand-Valle Jo TheatrfS Corporation. Theatre operating. To issue all of 1,000 shares,.'par- $1. T«nth. and ' Western T.hea'tre Corpbra- tlon, I'hcatire operatingi To Issue all of 1,000 shares, par |i; Tennessee Nashville, Sept. 26. brphenm. Tlieater Corporation of .Mem- phis.. The capital was listed as $2,500 ancl the Irtcorporaitors •were Mort Gold- berg,- TjCo Solomon and Aaron H.. Cushon. Oklahoma Oklahoma City, Sept. 25. .Cones-Rt>ee'nl>er7 ..Radio. C6rp> Oklar homa City, OKla. Capital stock, 13,000. Incorporators - Alma Rosenbery, John A. Rosenbery and. Mona X.ee. Cones,' all of Diclahonia City, ' S $2,300,00(1 PROniONYR. Londo "The report of Gaurnont- Picture Corporation and its allied companies available. It made a -net profit for the year end- ing March. 31 of $2,300,000, and the directors have . recommended the dividend increased from 6% to "The Pr-bvihcial Cinematograph theatres, which is a corpbratioh holding the leases of picture houses, show a profit of $2,500,000, an .in- crease of something like .$115,000 oyer tlie previous year. Donman Picture Houses, ,Ltd., an- other of thie, theatre holding cor- porations, lost $265,000 and General Theatres, the vaudeville circuit headed by the London Palladiu^li, lost $345,000., Regent, N. Y.^ Goes Puals RKO Regent, in Hai-lem,, went double features Saturday • (23). Once the Regent was k class vaude house on .the Keith time. S. Xj! Hothafel wis its first man- ager. Summary for week ending Saturday, Sept. 23: STOCK EXCHANGE iKh 7% 27% 0% 14% 80% ID 30% 25 80 V4 78%. 7 25? 2Vi ,2% 9% C% 85 ^» 22 58% 20% % 3% L.OW; % n% 1% 5% 40 12Vi 10«4 8 8V4 35 1% 1814 % . % 1 10 1 4% Sales. COO 3,400 000 5,000 H,700 7,000 160.100 ,4*3! 266, 100 2,000 200 0.800 8.100 0.000 174,000 7,100 40, 105,700 800 54,300 Issue- ond.riite. American Seat .. ,. Columbia P. vt . Consol. Film........ Consol. 'Film pfd... Enstmnn Kodak (3)'. Fox, Cla.ss A...... Gen. Elec. (40c.)... Keith pfd,,......... Loew (1) Do pref. (CV4)...... Met-Q-M pref. (1.80). Paramount ctfs Pathe Exchange..,.. ■ Pathe, Class A....... Bndio Corp RKO. Universal preC......... Wflrncr Bros.......... Do pfd............... Wcstlnghouse ....... 1. Id .400 Columbia .Plots. 27 400 Gen, Thea. ,E. pfd. it 2.000 Technicolor r 7% 000 Trans LUx .................. 2% PRODUCE EXCHANGE 1 $30,000 Gen. Thea. Eq 20% 7,000 Keith O's, '40 48 28.000 Loew O'.*!, '41 , 4% 0.000 Pathe 7'3. '37 4% 24.000 I'ar-FDm-I.rtsky O's, ' r.% 72,000 Par-Pub C%'s. '50.............. Wi UKO debs O's...... 12 208,000 Warner Bros, O's, ' • Over the Counter, % Roxy. Class A Gen. 'riio.ntrc pfs. pold Slfi.OOO a 7>, 3%, 4%, unchancod, I'nr-K-r. ris, sold .?.->,t)(M) H 'AWT, 31V4 down I'ar-X'ub x f::,'.sold $i;.'.(W0 ® 32, 20Vi ,20',s, clown 2U. ,—3 '/8 % '.6 40% 83 29% 29Vi 20V4 3 4C% 83% 20% 20% 20% 40 - % -3% —4 ' -3% -3% -1% -2Vi Electrical Research Products Inc. 250 West 57th Street, New York, N. Y.