CORPORATION FINANCIAL REPORTS 309

While the number of stockholders has been increasing, the average holdings of each stockholder have been steadily decreasing, and now average ninety-eight shares. The stocks of the United States Steel Corporation are great favorites among small investors. Taking the stockholders' list, it was found that among one hundred people, chosen at random, only nine own one hundred shares, or over, of both preferred and common stock, while forty-seven have less than ten shares each.

It is highly desirable that corporations should not only keep their old stockholders, but should attract new ones. The surest way to accomplish this end is to treat stockholders with the utmost frankness. Although considerable publicity is already given to the affairs of the larger corporations, further publicity is desirable. The average stockholder does not as a rule understand a balance sheet, and has only the vaguest idea of his company's affairs. So long as dividend payments are maintained, he is content. To be sure, a stockholder can always get an impartial and valuable opinion from an investment banker concerning the past records and future prospects of any company, but it would be well if the annual reports of boards of directors to stockholders contained material from which the investor could judge for himself to a greater extent. The material included should show the records of the company over a period of years, for the company's achievement in any one year may be unnecessarily discouraging, or fictitiously encouraging. These records are most easily understood when put in graphic form. With such graphic presentations any stockholder can learn instantly how the fiscal year under review compares with the several years preceding.