Skinflint's City Diary
With the fall in the stock market many shares have suffered the indignity of becoming penny stocks. Now I do not know the proper definition of a penny stock, but they got their name over here from the activities of organisations like the Whitehead Industrial Trust who floated and refloated many companies before the war and in the stock market boom of the early 1950s. The prerequisite was share splits, anda huge number of shares at issue with par values in pence if not exactly at the penny level. The idea was that a penny share if it appreciated at all must go up by a halfpenny at the least which meant a 50 per cent increase in value. T roll of the new penny stocks shows how the mighty have been humbled. Triumph Investment at 4p. First National at 10p. Selincourt at 7p. Liden at 8p. Alfred Herbert at 9p. Brown Bros. at 7p. Armour Trust at 91/2p. Cannon Street at 9p. Instead of share splits we shall probably have a series of schemes of consolidation for those who struggle through these difficult days. The day of the Renten-share will have arrived.
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