REBOUND ON WALL STREET : Main Street : Middle America Remained Calm

When 250 of Findlay’s elite gathered for the Rotary Club’s regular luncheon on Monday, club officials asked for a show of hands: How many had jumped in or out of the stock market on Friday?

Only four or five of those present raised their hands.

“We’re pretty conservative folks,” observed Ward Abbey, manager of the downtown Findlay brokerage office of A. G. Edwards, a St. Louis-based investment house.

“That’s the Midwest,” he added. “The ramrod, go-go, speculating style isn’t the way we are. We’re long-term investors. We probably miss some opportunities but we don’t get trapped, either.”

In fact, Findlay, like much of Middle America, seemed almost untouched by Wall Street’s latest crisis.

Financiers in New York and Los Angeles may have had trouble sleeping over the weekend, but here and elsewhere across the broad center of the nation, Friday’s stock market dive seemed strangely out of sync with a vast majority who are enjoying a period of solid economic growth.

Most Midwesterners would now agree with those analysts and business leaders who say that the stock market, obsessed as it is with takeover rumors, no longer serves as an accurate barometer of the nation’s economic climate.

“Oh, you read what those dummies up in New York are doing, but it’s not something anybody’s worried about,” said Floyd Bhaer, a gruff, retired investor, as he watched the ticker at the A. G. Edwards office Monday.

“I would say people panic in New York far more than they do here,” he added. “There’s too much of that leveraged stuff up there. As long as you stick with quality, you will be all right.”

Findlay, a town of 38,000 in western Ohio, has lots of money; it is home to Fortune 500 corporations and has a minuscule unemployment rate. Marathon Oil, a subsidiary of USX, is headquartered here; so is Cooper Tire. Japanese factories have been rapidly setting up shop here over the past few years, providing plenty of new jobs.

Yet, Findlay is also conservative in the true Midwestern mold. People here don’t throw their money around. They keep it close, or at least in a place safe.

So, for most people here, the junk-bond-fueled gyrations of Wall Street remain a distant abstraction.

“People in Findlay just don’t seem to get shaken up by Wall Street as a general rule,” contractor Marvin Rich said.

Those who invest in the market do so cautiously: They dabble in blue chip stocks, while most of their money stays in tax-exempt bonds, certificates of deposit, company stock plans or cash. Local brokers say they try to discourage speculating in takeover stocks; there is broad displeasure here with Carl C. Icahn’s occasional forays against USX.

“Things like (the decline Friday) don’t affect us much,” noted Sterling Pfeiffer, a broker with Cleveland-based McDonald & Co.’s office in Findlay. “Most of our people are long-term investors.”

So there was more bemusement than concern among Findlay’s small coterie of investors when the market went on its wild ride.

“I don’t know anyone who’s gotten too excited,” said Howard Walker, a retired businessman. “I don’t think you’ll find much speculation here. You don’t find people buying on margin and then getting forced to sell when the market plunges 400 points or so. Most people here buy stock with cash.”

The calm that pervaded Findlay was reinforced by the fact that the stocks of Findlay’s major employers, especially Cooper and USX, weathered the storm relatively well on Friday.

“None of them dropped nearly as much as they did two years ago” in the crash of October, 1987, said Lee Luff, executive vice president of the Findlay Chamber of Commerce.

Thus, when the market recovered Monday and the nation’s financial centers breathed a sigh of relief, Findlay simply shrugged.

“I haven’t heard much conversation about it,” developer Nick Petti said as he greeted Findlay civic leaders and other guests at the ground-breaking for his latest subdivision on the edge of town. Friday’s stocks plunge “sure didn’t affect our sales,” his daughter, Michele Treece, added. “I had four families lined up outside the (sales) office this morning.”

As the market rose Monday afternoon, Findlay’s conservative investors were still sitting tight. There was no rush to cash in on quick bargains.

“We’ve had some inquiries, but we haven’t been flooded with orders,” said Abbey, the stockbroker. “People are biting off little bits and pieces, but I don’t see anything wrong with waiting a few days.”