DIGEST
Kodak's outside directors - board members who have not been company executives - expressed support for chairman Kay R. Whitmore and senior Kodak executives, nearly a week after the company's stock dropped 10 percent following the departure of its new chief financial officer. But the directors said Kodak's performance "must be improved significantly."</br></br>IBM appointed Jerome York, 54, chief financial officer at Chrysler, as its chief financial executive and a senior vice president. Paul Rizzo, the previous CFO, will remain an adviser to Chairman Louis Gerstner, overseeing manufacturing and development, and continue as vice chairman.</br></br>Northwest Airlines and its two largest labor unions agreed in principle on concessions covering 33,600 employees, the unions said. Details will not be made public until members of the machinists and Teamsters unions vote on the contract, but the unions said their members would get a significant equity stake in the airline and job guarantees if the accord is approved.</br></br>U.S. Savings Bonds will earn interest at a rate of 4.78 percent for the next six months, the lowest level since the government began selling variable-rate bonds in 1982, the Treasury said. The new rate is down from 5.04 percent during the past six months. Newly purchased bonds held for five years or more are guaranteed to yield a minimum of 4 percent annually. The guaranteed minimum for bonds purchased before March 1 is 6 percent.</br></br>The Treasury sold $10.6 billion in three-month bills and $10.6 billion in six-month bills at average discount rates of 2.88 percent and 2.98 percent, respectively. The actual return to investors is 2.94 percent for three-month bills, with a $10,000 bill selling for $9,927.20, and 3.07 percent for a six-month bill selling for $9,849.30. Separately, the Federal Reserve said the average yield for one-year Treasury bills, the most popular index for making changes in adjustable rate mortgages, rose to 3.25 percent last week from 3.18 percent the previous week.