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Abreast of the market: Industrials edge up 4.32 points amid caution on interest rates | NEW YORK -- Stocks managed a mixed finish after a session of watching and worrying about interest rates.</br></br>The Dow Jones Industrial Average followed up on Tuesday's 82.06-point surge with a modest gain of 4.32, or 0.12%, to 3679.73. Broad-based indexes were mixed; the Nasdaq Stock Market eased.</br></br>The industrial average had gained as much as 20 points intraday, aided by strength in many economically sensitive stocks. But jittery investors locked in profits before the close, pushing prices lower, said Michael Lyons, a trader at Dean Witter Reynolds.</br></br>Investors remain unconvinced that the bond market rout, which has sent interest rates soaring and stock prices tumbling, is over, said David Butler, head of equity trading at Kemper Financial Services.</br></br>Stocks followed bonds back and forth several times yesterday. The 30-year Treasury finished with a slim gain of 1/32 point, to yield 7.24%. It was down nearly a full point at its session low around midday. | no | 0 |
Fed's No. 2 Resigns to Take Post at GMU; No Policy Change Seen Following Unexpected Departure of Johnson | Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Manuel H. Johnson, who has held posts at the Treasury or the central bank for nine and a half years, resigned yesterday to accept an endowed teaching position at George Mason University in Fairfax.</br></br>Johnson said that he did not want to commit himself to a second four-year term as Fed vice chairman after his term expires Aug. 3. He could have continued as a Fed governor, without being vice chairman, until the year 2000. "This was the appropriate time to return to private life," he said.</br></br>The resignation caught most officials at the Fed and the White House by surprise. There was no suggestion yesterday of who the Bush administration might name to succeed him at the Fed, the institution that more than any other in U.S. government has been directing the course of the nation's economy.</br></br>That choice will be closely watched, however, since the White House has complained publicly upon occasion that the Fed is keeping interest rates too high.</br></br>As vice chairman of the Fed, Johnson generally has been a conciliatory force helping to bring a sometimes sharply divided board into agreement, but that was not the case when he was first named to the board by President Reagan in late 1985. At one of his first board meetings, he joined in an unusual and successful challenge to Paul A. Volcker, chairman at the time, to force a cut in interest rates. | no | 0 |
Portfolio Tweaking May Be Needed in Today's Market | IF THE WORLD HAS changed, maybe your portfolio should, too.</br></br>In the wake of last month's terrorist attacks and the current U.S. military response, I wouldn't radically revamp your investment mix. Instead, the idea is to tweak your portfolio, cutting back here, adding a little money there, to reflect some of the startling changes of the past 18 months and especially the past four weeks.</br></br>Consider what has happened. The Federal Reserve has cut short-term interest rates, hoping to avert a recession but raising the specter of renewed inflation. Stocks have shed 30% of their value, yet remain richly valued. Bonds and money-market funds have fared far better, but today offer paltry yields.</br></br>What does all this mean for your portfolio? As you reassess your investment mix, try these four steps:</br></br>Step 1: Take a Stand | no | 0 |
MetLife, Prudential Report Drops in Profit | MetLife Inc.'s fourth-quarter profit slumped 74%, mostly because of wider losses tied to its financial-hedging program, but the big life insurer posted a stronger-than-expected gain in operating earnings.</br></br>Rival Prudential Financial Inc. also posted a steep quarter-over-quarter decline in net income and higher-than-expected operating profit, with sales of its retirement-income annuities continuing at a heady pace.</br></br>MetLife's U.S. operating earnings, which exclude capital gains and losses, fell about 5% as premiums, fees and other revenue declined about 8%. But in international markets, premiums surged 75% because of growth in MetLife's businesses and its purchase of Alico, a major life-insurance unit, from American International Group Inc. In November, MetLife significantly expanded its footprint in Asia, Europe and Latin America as it closed the $16.2 billion deal.</br></br>MetLife posted a profit of $82 million, or five cents a share, compared with $320 million, or 35 cents a share, a year earlier. Operating earnings, which exclude capital gains and losses, rose to $1.14 a share from 96 cents a share.</br></br>Operating revenue rose 6.7% to $14.21 billion. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters predicted operating earnings of $1.10 a share and operating revenue of $13.5 billion. | no | 0 |
Letters to the Editor: Incentive Pay and Joblessness | Inventing economic theories in an ivory tower is no substitute for living with the harsh reality of unemployment. Your Dec. 26 page-one article "Jobless Puzzle" described a trendy theory among academicians that the roots of unemployment lie in the "efficiency-wage" problem: unemployment persists because employers are paying artificially high wages in order to motivate workers to greater productivity. This prevents workers who are willing to work at a lower wage from finding jobs.</br></br>My experience indicates otherwise. I lived in a low-income ghetto and there had a string of housemates who were unemployed when they moved in, yet healthy, young and clearly in possession of employable skills. Without exception, these men failed to follow up on job leads I gave them, they walked past help-wanted signs every day, they even refused my offer to pay them generously for household chores. They chose instead to borrow from friends during the times that their government checks for unemployment and disability (it was a fraud) fell short of their needs.</br></br>This experience was a limited one yet I believe representative of a far broader problem. The men I lived with chose unemployment because it presented them with an economically desirable alternative to a life of work. Theirs was a low standard of living yet one they had grown accustomed to and complacent with. The professors studying unemployment would be wise to temper their fancy equations with some real-world experiences like these.</br></br>J. TURNER JOHNSON</br></br>Menlo Park, Calif. | no | 0 |
The Americas: Ecuador Struggles Toward a Dollar Economy | OTAVALO, Ecuador -- The long black braid, the blinding white cotton trousers and the woven shoes of the local businessmen here are visible reminders of this community's tenacious cultural pride. But it is at the markets, brimming with traditionally designed wool sweaters, bags, hammocks and wall hangings -- all crafted on imported looms -- that the Otavaleno's much-touted entrepreneurial savvy is on display. Behind the walls of many humble homes in this town, substantial inventories of those same products are bound for markets in Colombia, Chile, Venezuela, Europe and the U.S.</br></br>Located two hours north of Quito by car, on a winding and rutty road, this is said to be the only indigenous community -- of about 40 -- in the country never to have been brought under the control of the Spanish conquistadors. Ergo, instead of the stereotypical Indian poverty and isolation, the dignified Otavaleno is renowned for his independence and worldliness.</br></br>There is one thing, however, that Otavalenos share with this country's other Indian groups, mestizos and Europeans: profound economic suffering at the hands of the perniciously politicized Ecuadoran central bank. Since August 1998 the country's currency, known as the sucre, has lost 80% of its value in dollar terms, destroying savings and living standards; 1999 gross domestic product contracted 26.6% in dollar terms. Inflation, which in 1999 was more than 60%, is forecast to reach 90% in 2000.</br></br>Things are so bad here that even Ecuador's politicians, notorious fans of the central bank as an inexhaustible source of generosity, have caught on. This explains how it is that on Tuesday the Ecuadoran Congress narrowly passed a law mandating that within 180 days the central bank's dollar reserves will be used to retire the paper sucres currently in circulation -- at a rate of 25,000 to one. The new law marks the end of the central bank's power to print money and the beginning of economic hope for 12 million Ecuadorans.</br></br>Yet, it is still only hope. The law grossly perverts the term dollarization in order to preserve specific discretionary central-bank powers such as setting reserve requirements and interest rates and the ability to intervene in the markets through the use of repurchase agreements. The central bankers, it would seem, harbor a deep-seated desire to manipulate monetary outcomes even in the absence of a domestic currency system. This is absurd, but it is also illustrative in that it dramatically defines the core problems of the country: The central bankers, along with this country's other privileged elite, are dug in so hard that nonsense becomes law at their behest. Prying their hands off the economy and moving toward liberalization will mean a long, hard fight, well beyond the simple dollar-for-sucres exchange. | no | 0 |
Industrials Advance 26.94 Points, Led by Rises in Bonds and Dollar | Stock prices rallied in moderate pre-holiday trading, following a higher bond market and a firmer dollar.</br></br>In keeping with tradition, the stock market broke out of its bearish mood of the past two days, and prices advanced before the long Fourth of July weekend. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose about 18 points in the first few minutes of trading, boosted by an influx of buy orders from foreign investors, traders said.</br></br>The flurry of buying interest faded after the first hour, but the industrial average held on to its early gains. Trading perked up in late afternoon and the blue-chip average extended its gains to finish up 26.94 at 2436.70.</br></br>The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index gained 2.69 to 305.63, and the New York Stock Exchange composite index moved up 1.31 to 171.83.</br></br>On the Big Board, gainers outnumbered losers by a 9-to-5 count. Despite the price advance, volume again contracted, to 154.9 million shares from 157 million shares Wednesday. | yes | 1 |
Wholesale Prices Dropped 0.3% During January | WASHINGTON -- Inflation news couldn't be much more soothing.</br></br>Wholesale prices unexpectedly fell 0.3% in January, after a 0.6% jump in December, the Labor Department said. Stripping out the volatile food and energy sectors, the producer price index was flat in January after inching up 0.1% the month before. "Extremely well-behaved," said economist Marilyn Schaja of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, New York.</br></br>The scary monster of recent inflation reports -- energy prices -- has been tamed; those prices slipped 0.2% after three consecutive months of sharp acceleration. Given recent declines in crude oil and natural-gas prices, energy prices should come down further in coming months, analysts said. The food index dropped 1.0%, having risen sharply several months earlier when poor weather threatened many crops.</br></br>A few scattered red flags popped up, however. Prices of crude goods such as aluminum and copper shot up 5.2%, and even without food and energy jumped 2.0%. If those goods cost more money, often the products they're used to make will eventually cost more, too. "Recall that in 1994, inflation showed up in the pipeline well ahead of the increases that eventually appeared" in finished goods, warned economist Christopher Low of HSBC Markets Inc., New York. "Don't get complacent."</br></br>But Ms. Schaja of DLJ said analysis indicates a weak relationship between crude-goods prices and finished-goods prices, so very little of that increase should filter through. Also, industrial-material prices have already started coming back down this month, so the January increase likely will be reversed in coming months. Finally, Ms. Schaja noted that year-over-year core crude prices fell 3.7%. Meanwhile, prices of intermediate goods, or semifinished products like yarn and lumber, rose only 0.2%; the core index for intermediate goods was up just 0.1%. | no | 0 |
Business and Finance | AT&T PLANS TO FRANCHISE its name for the first time to wireless and local phone companies, breaking with its tradition of keeping tight control over its network assets. The plan could allow AT&T to hold down its capital spending, saving billions of dollars over several years. The strategy could also help determine whether Vice Chairman Zeglis will win the top job at the telecom giant.</br></br>---</br></br>Clinton asked Congress to toughen the proposed tobacco accord by passing legislation to counter teen smoking by raising cigarette prices by as much as $1.50 a pack over 10 years.</br></br>Philip Morris said its U.S. tobacco chief will retire, as regulatory pressures are forcing the industry to focus on operational issues over marketing.</br></br>--- | no | 0 |
Crude Plunges Under $96 | Crude-oil futures fell below $96 a barrel Wednesday after members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed to maintain their total production level and warned about lower economic growth next year.</br></br>Gasoline futures also fell sharply, as a U.S. government report showed that supplies last week climbed more than expected, pulling prices for the fuel down by 4%.</br></br>In recent trade, crude-oil futures for January delivery dropped $4.55, or 4.5%, to $95.59 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after tapping a low of $95.39.</br></br>At a meeting in Vienna on Wednesday, OPEC said members will maintain their current total production of 30 million barrels per day, including production from Libya, which has been ramping up to pre-civil-war levels.</br></br>The group noted that downside risks facing the global economy continue to include "the sovereign debt crisis in the euro zone, persistently high unemployment in the advanced economies and inflation risk in the emerging economies." | yes | 1 |
Cisco and Charles River Soar; Hospira, Toll Brothers Stumble; Other Housing Firms Drop As Do Federated, Disney Amid Broad Economic Fears | Continued concerns about the strength of the U.S. economy got the better of stocks yesterday, as sharp increases in Cisco Systems and Charles River Laboratories International were more than offset by Hospira's plunge and home builder Toll Brothers delivering an affirmation that conditions are cooling.</br></br>The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 97.41, or 0.87%, to 11076.18. The Nasdaq Composite Index eased 0.57, or 0.03%, to 2060.28, with its loss mitigated by Cisco's influence on the tech group. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index shed 5.53, or 0.43%, to 1265.95. This was the fourth loss in a row for the three averages.</br></br>"We started off in pretty good shape but couldn't hang on as concerns about the economy hobbled us," said Alan Skrainka, chief market strategist with Edward Jones. "It's clear that 17 rate hikes are taking a bite out of industry sectors."</br></br>Still, Cisco Systems (Nasdaq) jumped $2.49, or 14%, to $19.78, boosting its market value by more than $15 billion in its biggest percentage advance in more than four years. The maker of routers, switches and other apparatus that connect computers to the Internet late Tuesday reported strong fourth-quarter results, buoyed by solid orders. It projected revenue would increase 15% to 20% for fiscal 2007.</br></br>The robust report lifted Cisco's rivals, as well. Juniper Networks (Nasdaq) rose 49 cents, or 3.8%, to 13.41, Alcatel's American depositary receipts gained 22 cents, or 2%, to 11.12, and Lucent Technologies, set to merge with Alcatel, advanced six cents, or 2.9%, to 2.11. | yes | 1 |
Take Care Attributing Market Moves | Your editorial " A Barack Market" (Nov. 13) is on the mark. When a president-elect cannot say, in a bear market and a with recession on the horizon, whether he and his party will or will not raise any taxes it is at best an indicator that he has no knowledge or appreciation of capitalism and the markets, or at worst a cynical attempt to further weaken the public's confidence in both.</br></br>Barack Obama and the Democrats will be unable to contain their pent-up desire to spend money on union bailouts (i.e., automobile companies) and other favored constituents, pay off MoveOn.org, Code Pink and all the other various groups that helped them get elected and raise taxes on the evil rich.</br></br>Stephen J. McCann</br></br>Salisbury, Md.</br></br>--- | no | 0 |
Drug Companies Report Pain; Results for 3rd Quarter Diagnose Industry's Flagging Health | MERCK & CO., in a dramatic reflection of the pharmaceutical industry's profit woes, said it will fall short of 2003 earnings targets, and announced plans to lay off 4,400 workers in the face of lower-than-expected sales of some big drugs.</br></br>At the same time, Wyeth reported a third-quarter loss after setting aside $2 billion more to cover already sky-high claims of heart damage from diet drugs that came off the market in 1997.</br></br>The news came amid a flurry of third-quarter earnings reports from six major drug makers that offered a sobering checkup on the pharmaceutical sector's flagging health. Almost every drug company is beset with expiring patents for major products and a shortfall in new blockbusters. Competition from generics and a recent wave of over-the- counter versions of some prescription drugs are intensifying the pain at several companies.</br></br>Pfizer Inc. and GlaxoSmithKline PLC, the world's No. 1 and No. 2 two drug companies, respectively, posted stronger results than their rivals, but they continue to cut costs in the wake of megamergers that may buy them time until a new crop of blockbusters emerges. Eli Lilly & Co said net income rose 4.5%.</br></br>The results cast a pall over the stock market. Merck was down 6.5%, or $3.19, to $45.72 in 4 p.m. New York Stock Exchange composite trading, helping to drag down the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Pfizer fell 88 cents to $30.62 while Wyeth slipped 5.5%, or $2.50, to $43.30 and Schering-Plough Corp. lost 88 cents to $15.12 and Lilly fell $1.72 to $60.78, all in Big Board trading. Glaxo's American depositary shares fell $1 to $42.92, also on the NYSE. | no | 0 |
Annuities Linked to Stocks Take On New Life | Today, the boomer generation worries about amassing enough money for retirement. Tomorrow will bring another worry: how to make a limited pool of savings last for life.</br></br>That's where annuities come in--the type known as "immediate pay." These annuities guarantee you a permanent income, no matter how long you live.</br></br>They have some drawbacks. But insurers are starting to rethink immediate-pay annuities to make them more salable--especially annuities linked to the performance of stocks.</br></br>You buy an immediate-pay annuity with a lump sum of money. The funds might come from regular savings, stock market gains, a retirement plan, even the cash in a life insurance policy.</br></br>The insurer will turn that money into a lifetime income. The income could also cover the joint lifetimes of you and your spouse. Neither of you would ever run out of cash, no matter how long you lived. | no | 0 |
Arlington Still Waiting for Westover Library Renovations; Construction Funds Approved in 1998 | In November 1998, more than 75 percent of Arlington County voters approved $4 million in bond money to renovate or replace the aging Westover Branch Library.</br></br>As is customary in a county known for communicating with residents, officials appointed a citizen committee, and plans emerged for an elaborate building. The building, a joint project with Arlington schools, would feature a library on the first floor, school offices on the second and an underground parking garage.</br></br>Yet more than five years later, there is no new library, even though the county has already spent $450,000 in design funds. And with the project behind schedule and at least several million dollars over budget, Arlington school officials recently notified the county they were pulling out of the project because they couldn't justify the expense. That has left county officials scrambling to redesign a scaled-down building and stay on a construction schedule that is not even supposed to start until next spring.</br></br>The best-case scenario: a new library sometime in fall 2006 -- a full eight years after voters first went to the polls to approve money for the facility.</br></br>"They have already spent $450,000 on a building they have now figured out they can't afford to build. They might not be quite at square zero, but they are close," said Wayne Kubicki, a member of the county's Fiscal Affairs Advisory Commission who has been tracking the project. | no | 0 |
Relying on IRS Call-In Tax Service Could Be an Invitation to Trouble | Need an answer to a tax question? The Internal Revenue Service has about 2,400 people staffing its phone-in taxpayer information service.</br></br>Want to be confident that the answer you get is correct? Then you might want to look somewhere else.</br></br>This reporter called 17 IRS offices around the country to sample their answers to four questions taxpayers might ask between now and April 15. The questions ranged from a general inquiry about a new tax credit for diesel-car owners to a more demanding one about the tax treatment of a stock-market maneuver.</br></br>The results: No question commanded correct answers from all five IRS offices to which it was directed. On two questions, four out of five responses were accurate. On the other two, totally or partially wrong answers outnumbered the correct ones by about the same ratio.</br></br>Accountants say that such errors aren't unusual, particularly when somewhat complex questions are involved. "My personal opinion is that you can't really rely on the call-in service," says Sidney Kess, director of tax policy and planning at the accounting firm of Main Hurdman. "Many times they are shooting from the hip. They aren't necessarily checking the points." | no | 0 |
Asian Shares Rise on Yellen's Comments, China Data | Asian markets moved higher on Wednesday after the release of stronger-than-expected trade data from China, and U.S. Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen said she planned no major changes in the central bank's monetary policies.</br></br>In the biggest economic headline in Asia on Wednesday, China reported that exports climbed 10.6% in January from a year earlier, a much strong gain than the 0.1% rise that had been expected. The figure also marked an improvement on December's 4.3% growth, and a rise from a high base early last year, when exports were widely believed to have been overstated as capital flows were disguised as trade payments.</br></br>The impact was most felt in Hong Kong, where the Hang Seng Index jumped 1.5% to 22285.79. In mainland China, the Shanghai Composite gained 0.3% to 2110.79 after gaining 2.9% over the previous two sessions.</br></br>In Australia, a country with strong trade links with China, the benchmark S&PASX 200 rose 1.1% to 5310.10.</br></br>More broadly for the region, Ms. Yellen suggested in her first congressional testimony as chairwoman that the Fed would keep in place most of its easy-money policies as it gradually reduces the extraordinary bond-buying program that it has used to stimulate the U.S. economy. | no | 0 |
Small stock focus: Nasdaq critic vows he isn't taking sides | NEW YORK -- To some small-stock traders and regulators, William G. Christie is the Nasdaq Stock Market's public enemy No. 1.</br></br>But the 39-year-old Mr. Christie, a finance professor at Vanderbilt University who co-wrote the study that is shaking up the "Stock Market for the Next 100 Years," insists he isn't out to destroy the market. "We have no moral agenda. We're not taking sides," he says.</br></br>Of course, that may be difficult for Nasdaq's defenders to believe. Mr. Christie and Ohio State University's Paul H. Schultz shook up the dealer network that is the core of the electronic Nasdaq Stock Market with two reports earlier this year that suggest there is "tacit collusion" among Nasdaq traders at Wall Street securities firms. The reports directly triggered two dozen civil lawsuits against Nasdaq trading firms. More important, it led to the pending Justice Department antitrust investigation of Nasdaq dealers that was disclosed last month and the recent start of a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation.</br></br>In other words, the studies have led to the biggest legal and public-relations threat to Nasdaq since its founding in 1971.</br></br>To Nasdaq dealers, Prof. Christie and Prof. Schultz are nothing but ivory-tower types who wouldn't know a real trading floor if they were beamed down to it. But Prof. Christie says the facts stand on their own. Those facts, he says, were stumbled upon by himself and Prof. Schultz during a study on an unrelated Nasdaq matter. | no | 0 |
C6 SUNDAY, MAY 16, 1982 | ÐÊ M B ROF. PAUL HURD outlines a frightening na-. 'T7' tional trend on todayÛªs op-ed page. American precollege students are heading toward scientific and technological illiteracy in a world where se-Û¢curity and prosperity increasingly depend on sci---ence and technology. Dr. Hurd presented his warning to a convocation at the National Academy of Sciences last week.</br></br>At the meeting, educators told of steadily declining student achievement in mathematics and the V sciences and of less demanding and more out-of-J date curricula. School administrators confirmed an appalling shortage of science and mathematics teachers. The superintendent of HoustonÛªs public schools reported that thousands of students had graduated without ever having had a qualified math ;.or science teacher.</br></br>. Representatives of industry, both the new high-. technology companies and the traditional ÛÏsmokestackÛ industries, warned that they are already una-ble to find workers sufficiently trained and comfort-' able with mathematics and technology, and that . their need for such workers is going to grow steadily. The secretary of defense linked the problem directly to national security because of manpower ..needs in both the armed services and defense industries. Numerous speakers reminded the audience : 'that its literate work force has been a traditional ad-' vantage of the U.S. economy since the beginning of Tthe industrial age.</br></br>Specialists reported that while science and mathematics education been allowed to fall into decline in the United States, it is being accorded the highest priority elsewhere. Prof. Hurd illustrates some df the ominous differences between this and other countries. Yet even more than in. those other societies, democracy demands that citizens understand the choices they have to make. A very small number of American students are being vtell prepared'for careers in science and engineering, but nearly everyone elseÛÓabout 98 percent of high school graduatesÛÓis leaving school as a functional illiterate in these fields, in effect denied full citizenship.</br></br>Twenty-five years ago, Sputnik galvanized the United States into the realization that it had fallen way behind. This time, there is no single foreign threatÛÓat least not yetÛÓthough the problem may be worse. Last time, there was an immediate federal response and the programs worked, until funding and attention dissipated in the late Ûª60s. This time, there is little or no federal money available and a disinclination to look toward Washington for a solution. | no | 0 |
Severe Flooding Blamed For Some of New Layoffs: Weather Hurts California | SACRAMENTO, Calif., March 7ÛÓ CaliforniaÛªs unemployment rate rose sharply to 7.2 percent during February, a 1.4 percent increase over the month before, meaning that</br></br>The rise was the largest in more than a year, and it puzzled state officials who only could speculate that bad weather had kept many more workers than usual off the job. They noted that heavy rains have left fields in many areas too muddy to work, resulting in See CALIFORNIA, D2, Col. 1 layoffs of farmhands. The state Employment Development Department reported today that 566,700 people were laid off during February, another 114,500 left their jobs voluntarily and the balance was ÛÏnew entrants or re-entrants into the labor market.Û</br></br>Suzanne Schroeder, an EDO spokeswoman, said the nine-day series of storms that slammed northern California last month may have been responsible for at least part of the rise in unemployment.</br></br>ÛÏThe last time there was this big a change was in December 1984 to January 1985, with 1.8 percent," she said. ÛÏWe donÛªt really know why it was so sharp. It may be that the</br></br>In Washington, U.S. Labor Department analyst Howard Hayghe also speculated that flooding in California had kept agricultural workers out of the fields and pushed up unemployment. | no | 0 |
Getting Bigger at the Box Office; A 25-Cent Increase Brings Ticket Prices to $7.25 at Many Area Theaters | Old shows like "Maverick" and "The Flintstones" may be pulling customers into movie theaters this summer, but there's nothing nostalgic about ticket prices.</br></br>Cineplex Odeon Corp., the largest operator of movie theaters in the Washington area with 29 theaters and 125 screens, said it has increased prices by 25 cents. That brings the cost of a movie to $7.25 in the District, where Cineplex operates 13 out of 17 movie theaters, and to $6.75 at most suburban theaters.</br></br>Sony Theaters Management Corp., which operates Loews Theaters, said it has raised prices by the same amount at four of the eight theaters it operates in the Washington area. The increases took effect at the end of last month.</br></br>The AMC movie chain increased prices by a quarter, to $6.75, at its Union Station theater, the only one it operates in the District. But prices were unchanged or reduced at its other complexes in the area. The price dropped a quarter at its multiscreen complex at Potomac Mills.</br></br>Movie theater operators generally review their prices right before the summer and Christmas, their two strongest seasons. When they did this year, what they saw convinced them that consumers would continue to come even at higher prices, industry executives said. | no | 0 |
Productivity Takes Surprise Jump; Report Bolsters View That New Economic Era Has Begun | Government figures released yesterday provided potent ammunition for those who believe the U.S. economy has entered a new era in which technology and a more flexible labor market are making American companies more productive than before.</br></br>The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that productivity -- which measures output per hour worked -- grew at an unexpectedly strong 2.5 percent rate in the second quarter, compared with a revised 0.1 percent rate in the previous quarter.</br></br>In large part, the improved efficiency in the April-June period resulted from companies' laying off workers and cutting work hours to bring labor costs into line with sluggish demand for their goods. But companies were able to increase overall national production slightly even with reduced workforces -- and the higher productivity figure didn't fit the usual pattern for recessions and slowdowns, when productivity typically begins to fall.</br></br>Furthermore, revised figures for 1998 through 2000 showed that productivity rose at an annual rate of 2.6 percent during that period. That is a bit lower than the 3.2 percent annual rate originally estimated, but it is still well above the pace recorded during most of the 1970s, '80s and early '90s. And it is robust enough to ease the concerns, voiced by some new-economy skeptics, that the productivity gains of recent years were illusory.</br></br>"If you believed before that there was some fundamental change in the way the economy functions, you should believe it still," said Neal Soss, an economist with Credit Suisse First Boston in New York. | no | 0 |
New York Fashion Week: Designers Cozy Up to Layers, Warmer Fabrics --- Tweed, Mohair and Wool Flannel Blanket the Runways, and Even Fur Makes a Comeback in Collections Unveiled for Fall | Corrections & Amplifications</br></br>A Sunday appearance by the band Guns N' Roses in connection with New York Fashion Week took place at the Gramercy Park Hotel. A Tuesday article about designers adopting heavier, warmer fabrics incorrectly identified the location as a John Varvatos boutique.</br></br>(WSJ February 19, 2010)</br></br>This winter's unexpectedly cold weather has done more than raise (mistaken) doubts about global warming in some corners. It appears to have inspired several New York designers to turn back to heavier, warmer fabrics for the collections they plan to sell in the fall.</br></br>Tweed, mohair and wool flannel are sweeping the runways at New York Fashion Week. | no | 0 |
Personal Income Rose 0.2% in March; Cheaper Oil Seen Lifting Buying Power | WASHINGTON -- Lower oil prices are expected to spur solid gains in consumers' purchasing power in coming months despite the small increase in personal income in March.</br></br>Personal income rose 0.2% last month, following a revised 0.4% increase in February, the Commerce Department reported. Consumer spending last month increased 0.3% following a revised 0.4% rise in February. The income rise was originally put at 0.6% and the spending increase, at 0.3%.</br></br>"Income is growing very slowly," said Robert Dederick, chief economist for Northern Trust Co. in Chicago. "But thanks to the oil price cut, people are in effect getting a tax cut."</br></br>A spending-based price measure reported after a one-month lag fell 0.4% in February after increasing 0.3% in January. After adjusting for price changes, February spending rose 0.9%.</br></br>"Once you get the low inflation numbers factored in, the numbers don't look so weak," said Robert Wescott, senior economist at Wharton Econometric Forecasting Associates in Philadelphia. He noted that consumers also are benefiting from the decline in interest rates. | yes | 1 |
Stocks Decline in Slower Trading As Profit-Taking Ends 3-Day Rally | NEW YORK -- The stock market turned lower after three days of gains, with volume on the New York Stock Exchange shrinking by 16% from the previous day.</br></br>The lethargic session, analysts and traders said, showed that the 61.35-point jump in the Dow Jones Industrial Average the previous three days probably wasn't the start of a long rally. The industrial average fell 11.92 yesterday to 2141.71 as investors continued to take profits on the gains made early in the week. That tendency had begun to show up Wednesday, when the average rose only 4.27 points after a two-day advance totaling 57.08.</br></br>Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's visit and other developments early in the week lifted the financial markets. But as Mr. Gorbachev cut short his New York visit and rushed home yesterday to deal with the effects of a serious earthquake in Armenia, bearish factors such as the U.S. budget deficit and possibly rising interest rates were back on center stage.</br></br>Stock-index futures traders, meanwhile, continue to insist that the stock market won't really boil until the 280 level on the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index is broken. They had hoped that would happen yesterday. But the index, which had been rising strongly in recent days, never got above its opening level of 278.13. It closed at 276.57, down 1.56.</br></br>"Stocks are at a stopping point here for a few sessions, based on a normal easing of momentum," said A.C. Moore, director of research at Argus Research in New York. "There could be a pullback of 20 to 40 points (in the industrial average) over the next few days before it goes higher." | no | 0 |
Child Care -For All Children | Whether the question is equality between the races and the sexes or welfare/workfare reform, the flood of middle-class women into the work force or adolescent parenting, economic competitiveness or functional illiteracy, a part of the answer is likely to be: child care.</br></br>Except for a handful of conservatives who see tax-supported day care as an intrusion into the inner sanctum of the family, and a smaller number of futurist philosophers who doubt the wisdom of pushing women out of the home in pursuit of full employment, there is a growing consensus that child care is a critical element in addressing America's economic and educational woes.</br></br>But the move toward consensus has come in such herky-jerky, differently motivated surges that we have neglected to spell out what we want child care to produce or how best to achieve it.</br></br>The women's movement sees the ready availability of day care as crucial to the problem of sexual equity. As long as women are expected to see to the care of their children and produce family income, they cannot hope to achieve on-the-job equality.</br></br>With black women even more likely than their white counterparts to be primary breadwinners, day care has emerged as an important civil rights issue. | no | 0 |
Active Stocks Gain in Irregular Trade: Averages Drop Slightly | M-:\\ 'SOUK, March 19 CAP)ÛÓThe Stock Market settled downward irregularly today with buying interest strong in selected</br></br>The decline did no particular damage to the market averages. Plus signs predominated among the volume leaders but in the over-all list there was a plurality of losers me i guincis.</br></br>The economic background was regarded as mixed by security analysts. A decline in durable goods demand was reported for February, the first since business recovery started about a year ago It looked as if lax credits lor business spending would be cut hack by the House Ways and Means Committee.</br></br>On the- bullish side was another increase in weekly steel production and a fairly optimistic atmosphere emerging from the steel labor negotiations showed a moderate decline of 30 at 261 50. with industrials and rails each off .40 while utilities were unchanged</br></br>Volume was 3.22 million shares, compared with 3 06 million on Friday. Among the 15 most active stocks, ten advanced and five declined. | no | 0 |
Prime Rate Rumors Spur Stock Rally: Banks Deny Plans | NEW YORK, Feb. 11ÛÓThe stock markets rallied strongly in late trading today on hopes for lower interest rates.</br></br>The Dow Jones average of 30 blue chip industrial stocks, off a little more than 2 points in earlier trading, jumped 10.70 points within an hour to close at 757.33. - e&foSMggen turnaround was trig.</br></br>deitedjtarkets will be closed, (redact* iding the New York aCotfise and Sugar Ex-, . , P^Batige, the Commodity</br></br>Big Board tape, 813 *d]Brothers * gutsier j j j mu W.H10I1 represented institu-and 502 declined. Them^^ both sides</br></br>The New York StocflcavExbeen adversely affected change index mirrored biyriss atement earlier in the of 36 cents in the aWFftfee that the firmÛªs first common Share price. dPtJFkP1' earnings may fall below th^ comparable 1969 quar ter. | yes | 1 |
Boeing Profits, Sales Up Slightly in Quarter: Earnings Reports | Boeing Co. yesterday an-nmineert a slight Increase in earnings for the second quarter and first half of the year.</br></br>The airplane manufacturer said the earning Improvement reflected favorable performance In major areas of operations and lower interest rates.</br></br>' In the first half, Boeing earned $38.4 million ($1.81) on sales of $1,88 billion, up from last yearÛªs first-half earnings of $36 million ($1.70) on sales of $1.81 billion.</br></br>ÛÏThe twelve months ended June 30 can be characterized as a tumultuous year without precedent for the sugar Industry,Û said Amstar president Robert T. Quiltmeyer.</br></br>Amstar said that raw sugar prices at the end of its fiscal year were about 14.5 cents per pound against 26.5 cents per pound In June 1974. In the middle of the year, raw sugar prices ran up as high as 64.5 cents per pound. | no | 0 |
Arthur Burns Hits Tax Cut Now: Implies Criticism of Reagan Proposal | Former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Arthur F. Burns said yesterday that ÛÏat the present time, any tax (cut) legislation is prematureÛªÛªÛÓby implication, though not director, criticizing Ronald ReaganÛªs recent proposal for a one-year antirecession tax cut.</br></br>In a conference with & group of reporters, Burns said that to cut taxes now ÛÏwould be attacking a short-term economic problem and not the longer-run problem which is far more serious. ... In an election season, tax legislation ought not to be written. We can wait.ÛªÛª</br></br>Burns also called attention to a ÛÏdifference in prioritiesÛªÛª between ReaganÛªs tax proposal and one offered by a recently organized Committee to Fight Inflation, which Burns heads.</br></br>The Reagan proposal, including a 10 percent personal income tax cut across the board, would give about 90 percent of a $21 billion reduction in fiscal 1981 to individuals and only 10 percent to Business.</br></br>The Burns committee gives greater emphasis to reducing business taxes, gradually in the next two years and at an accelerated pace in the three following years. It does not include any per- | no | 0 |
DIGEST | A $910 million settlement of an investor class action lawsuit alleging that 30 brokerage firms conspired to rig prices on the Nasdaq Stock Market has been given preliminary approval by a federal judge. In New York, U.S. District Judge Robert Sweet allowed attorneys in the case to place newspaper advertisements notifying investors of their eligibility to collect money under the settlement. The judge is expected to hold another hearing next year before deciding whether to give the settlement final approval.</br></br>Sales of existing homes edged 0.2 percent lower in November from a record level the month before, a trade group said. Existing single-family homes sold at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.38 million units last month, down from 4.39 million units in October, the National Association of Realtors said. The drop was the result of declines in the Northeast and Midwest.</br></br>The Justice Department sued to block Alcoa's $250 million purchase of Reynolds Metals' aluminum mill and other property in Alabama. The department, in a suit filed in federal court in Alabama, alleged that the acquisition would lead to higher prices for aluminum used to make beverage cans. It noted that Alcoa doesn't plan to reopen a Muscle Shoals aluminum rolling mill that Reynolds will close before selling the plant to Alcoa. Richmond-based Reynolds said its legal team will review its options before it comments further. Alcoa officials were not available for comment.</br></br>Bethlehem Steel, unable to turn its coke plant in Bethlehem, Pa., into a profitable operation, said it intends to close the plant by March 31. The nation's second-biggest steelmaker said it would try to sell the plant, which employs 800 workers, but that no buyers have emerged. Coke is used in making steel.</br></br>Shaw Industries, a carpet manufacturer and retailing giant, said it plans to close 100 stores in a move affecting 600 employees. Shaw has about 24,000 employees. The Dalton, Ga.-based company said it would take a special fourth-quarter charge of $36.3 million -- roughly 17 cents a share, or $22.8 million after taxes -- to cover the costs. | no | 0 |
Board of Contributors: Goose the Money Supply | When Alan Greenspan appears before the Senate and House Banking Committees later this month, a primary focus of his testimony will be the Fed's target for money supply growth during the current year. The decision on that rate of increase will be made during the next two days by the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee.</br></br>There's a good reason that the Federal Reserve is required to report on its target for the growth of the money supply rather than its target for interest rates. The change in the growth of the money supply is a good indicator of where the economy is likely to be headed in the near future. While it is certainly not a perfect indicator, the increase in the broad M2 monetary aggregate (that includes small time deposits and money market mutual funds as well as checking account deposits and currency) is far better than interest rates as a guide to the future growth of total spending in the economy.</br></br>As a rough rule of thumb, experience shows that the rate of growth of total nominal gross domestic product is approximately equal to the rate of increase of M2 six months earlier. Although there have been variations in this relation from year to year, over the past two decades nominal GDP has grown at an annual rate of 8.5% while the stock of M2 has grown by 8.7%. Recent experience also conforms quite closely to this general rule: Total nominal GDP rose 3.2% from the fourth quarter of 1990 until the fourth quarter of 1991, while M2 increased by 3.3% from the second quarter of 1990 to the second quarter of 1991.</br></br>The slow growth of nominal GDP last year helped to bring down inflation. But even with only a 3% percent rise of the GDP price deflator during 1991, the 3.2% nominal GDP rise left room for real GDP growth of only 0.2% from the fourth quarter of 1990 until the fourth quarter of 1991. A decline of GDP in the first quarter of 1991 was followed by a resumption of growth in the second and third quarters but then a fourth quarter in which real GDP rose only 0.3%. For the year as a whole, real GDP in 1991 was nearly 1% lower than in 1990. This recent slowdown would probably have been avoided if the Federal Reserve had provided faster growth of M2 earlier in the year.</br></br>Looking ahead, the level of economic activity during the first half of 1992 is likely to show very little if any increase because of the very slow growth of the money supply in the second half of 1991. Since M2 grew at an annual rate of only 1.3% from the second quarter of 1991 until the final quarter of the year, the rule of thumb based on past experience implies that nominal GDP will also rise only 1.3% during the first half of 1992. Unless the inflation rate drops below 1.3%, that simple forecasting rule implies no real growth in the first half of 1992. | yes | 1 |
Bond Prices, Stocks Post Sharp Gains --- Technical Factors Cited by Analysts; Dollar Slides Back | Stock and bond markets rebounded sharply in what many analysts said were technical rallies following sustained declines.</br></br>The Dow Jones Industrial Average soared 47.30 points to 2590.54 in active trading. And the Treasury's benchmark 30-year bond climbed one point, or $10 for each $1,000 face amount.</br></br>The dollar, meanwhile, slid back from levels reached in Tuesday's big rally. That rally was triggered by subsequently denied rumors that Mikhail Gorbachev was considering resigning as head of the Soviet Communist Party.</br></br>Analysts were skeptical about the nature of the stock and bond market rallies, noting that investors and traders in each market sought out reasons to be optimistic and ignored evidence to the contrary.</br></br>The stock market rally, for instance, began at the opening bell after an early-morning report that the index of leading economic indicators for December rose much more than expected. Investors concluded the economy isn't as weak -- and corporate earnings not as likely to decline -- as they had suspected. But investors chose to ignore a later report that showed new home sales at their lowest levels in five years, evidence that a large sector of the economy remains very weak. | no | 0 |
Rio No Vacation for AOL; Firm Remains Also-Ran in Exploding Market | The advertising slogan was supposed to trumpet the Bigfoot presence of America Online, stir consumer confidence and capture national attention. It said simply: "We're the biggest because we're the best."</br></br>In late August, the line did get national attention, but not the kind AOL Latin America wanted. After Brazil's leading Internet provider angrily challenged AOL's claim, a national consumer regulatory group forced the company to abandon the boast. Now, AOL billboards in Brazil sport a more softly spoken pitch, referring to convenience of access: "This is the easy way."</br></br>In its first foray into Latin America--among the world's fastest- growing Internet markets--AOL has had virtually nothing easy in Brazil. A clogged, highly complex market, a batch of unlucky breaks and what analysts call a series of strategic miscues have left the behemoth Internet service provider grasping for a place in an arena that experts predict will grow only more competitive in coming years.</br></br>The struggles of AOL's Latin America venture have included not only ad campaign troubles but a highly publicized software glitch, a domain-name crisis, management turmoil and a flaccid initial public offering. Analysts say those setbacks, along with the company's failure to capitalize on its powerful brand name, have led to AOL's surprisingly soft position in a country with roughly half of Latin America's Internet users.</br></br>The question now is whether AOL Latin America, a joint venture between the Dulles-based company and the Miami-based Cisneros Group, can recover from its stumbling start to forge a fresh, distinctive identity in this teeming market. | no | 0 |
U.S. Investors Are Losing Their Balance | One by one, Wall Street investors are losing legs to stand on. A reflex rally such as the one seen on Friday can do wonders for short-term sentiment on Wall Street, but investors need a reason to keep buying.</br></br>With the Dow Jones Transportation Average and the Dow Jones Industrial Average both showing signs of medium-term weakness, what started out as a fleeing from riskier assets is starting to evolve into fundamental weakness.</br></br>One of the basic tenets of the century-old Dow Theory of market analysis, which assumes in the long term that the economy drives the stock market, is that both the industrial and transport indexes have to conform each other's trends. That is based on the premise that Dow transports have a symbiotic link with the Dow industrials, since the industrials make the goods the economy needs and the transports move those goods around the country. Basically, to have a balanced economy one can't work without the other.</br></br>Investors relied on continued strong growth in China and the strengthening recovery in the U.S. to cushion the blow to U.S. stocks when the European sovereign-debt crisis first started to unfold. Over the last couple weeks, however, China's stock market transitioned from just underperforming to an outright downtrend. And recent data suggests the U.S. recovery may be slowing.</br></br>After the Conference Board's U.S. Leading Economic Index unexpectedly dipped in April for the first time in more than a year, Conference Board economist Ken Goldstein said the economic recovery will likely continue but "it could lose a little steam." Don't forget overly tame consumer inflation and shaky housing data for April. And the minutes of the Federal Reserve's last policy-setting meeting revealed that some members expressed concern that the crisis in Greece could spread to other European countries and eventually slow the U.S. recovery. | yes | 1 |
The Great Pretender | The passage of President Clinton's budget plan inspires one overriding emotion: relief. The biggest casualty of this dreary debate, conducted with hype on both sides, has been public understanding. The whole process has perpetuated the myth that the budget serves mainly as a tool to manage the economy. Our debates are backward. They focus on the budget's immediate economic effects and ignore the broader issue: defining the scope of government - and finding the best ways of paying for it.</br></br>The budget package is better than nothing, because it makes a small start at controlling the government's mushrooming debt. But you should be skeptical of all claims, pro and con, concerning the instant economic impact. Ours is a $6 trillion economy. Modest changes in government spending or taxes - and these changes are modest - don't mechanically determine its behavior. Too many other things matter. Remember that the deficit reduction of $496 billion occurs over five years, when the economy's estimated output will total slightly more than $36 trillion.</br></br>The point is not that the budget has no economic consequences; it is that the important consequences tend to be gradual and cumulative, as opposed to sudden jolts that make (or break) the business cycle. Yet, the politics of the budget are just the opposite. It will be judged on whether the recovery continues and how strong it becomes. Clinton and the congressional Republicans have each staked their political futures on something over which they have little, if any, control.</br></br>Clinton calls the budget "my plan for economic recovery" and says that it has already reduced interest rates on mortgages and bonds. Well, maybe there's been a small effect. But the main reason rates have dropped is the decline of inflation that began long before Clinton's election. Investors accept lower interest rates, because the value of their money isn't eroding so rapidly. It's the Republicans, though, who really ought to worry. Recoveries, once begun, gather momentum. If this one does, gradually creating new jobs with low inflation, Clinton will boast, "My plan worked - and not one Republican voted for it."</br></br>What will they say then? Republicans seem to expect that the recovery will stumble on what Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole calls "the largest tax increase in world history." Dole must have amnesia. In 1982, when he was majority leader, Congress passed legislation raising taxes $214 billion over five years. Adjusted for inflation, that's larger than the five-year tax increase in Clinton's budget ($240 billion). Guess what? The economy didn't collapse. By 1987 it had created nearly 13 million new jobs. | no | 0 |
S&P, Moody's report debt-rating boosts led reductions in '93 | NEW YORK -- Two large ratings services said the number of debt-rating upgrades exceeded downgrades in 1993 for the first time in almost a decade, with the banking sector showing particularly strong credit-quality improvement.</br></br>Standard & Poor's Corp. attributed the gains to lower interest rates and corporate belt-tightening. Moody's Investors Service Inc. said it expects speculative-grade ratings to lead the positive trend in 1994.</br></br>S&P said that for the first time since 1980, the number of corporate upgrades outpaced downgrades. Upgrades, the agency reported, totaled 343, compared with 263 downgrades. In dollar volume however, ratings were lowered on $243 billion of debt and raised on $130 billion because the ratings of several large issuers were lowered, S&P said.</br></br>Companies that saw their ratings lowered include General Motors Corp., International Business Machines Corp. and American Express Co., S&P noted.</br></br>Moody's also reported a higher volume of upgrades for the first time in nine years. In 1993, Moody's raised ratings of 163 companies, while lowering ratings of 154 corporations. This compared with 227 downgrades in 1992 and 136 upgrades. | no | 0 |
Dollar Decline May Defy Prevailing Wisdom | U.S. INVESTORS STAYED on an even keel after last week's foiled terrorist attack. But they still face an imminent threat to their portfolios: a slowing economy at home and increased interest rates abroad.</br></br>In such an environment, the dollar often suffers. When that happens, strategists and money managers tend to counsel clients to favor shares of large companies. The idea is that because these companies tend to be multinationals that earn large chunks of revenue from operations outside the U.S., they are better positioned to weather weakness at home. Also, increased overseas interest rates support foreign currencies, making earnings abroad worth more when the income is "repatriated" into weaker dollars.</br></br>Trouble is, the recent track record for that advice isn't what it used to be.</br></br>"In the last 14 years, there's really been no advantage to moving to large-cap stocks" during times of dollar weakness, said Mike Thompson, research director at Thomson Financial, referring to companies with the biggest stock-market values.</br></br>The research firm compared the performance of the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index, made up mostly of big multinationals, with various European currencies. Sure enough, those big stocks performed better from 1976 to 1992, a time when the dollar was generally weak. That seemed logical: The stocks moved in the opposite direction of the dollar. | yes | 1 |
GOP Says Maryland Democrats Raised State Pay Under a Veil | Republican legislators accused the Democratic governor and General Assembly leaders today of undermining attempts to cut state payrolls by giving backdoor pay raises to state employees and adding contract workers.</br></br>In an analysis distributed to lawmakers at a budget briefing, the bipartisan Department of Fiscal Services showed a drop of 2,272 regular state employees from July 1990 to July 1992, while the cost of the total payroll remained virtually unchanged. And while the regular state work force declined, the number of contract employees rose by nearly 1,000.</br></br>Gov. William Donald Schaefer and the legislature, trying to reduce state spending during the recession, have refused to give state workers a "step" or merit pay raise in the last two years.</br></br>But critics said that 6,000 employees received new job classifications last year, an undetermined number of them leading to promotions and higher wages.</br></br>"The implication over the last two years has been that the fat was cut from government, but it looks like government as usual," said Del. C. Ronald Franks (R-Eastern Shore), a member of the House Ways and Means Committee. | no | 0 |
Book World; Surviving A Quayle Presidency; A Humorist's View: It Wouldn't Matter | Joe Queenan is by his own admission a conservative and he seems on the evidence to be a Republican, but he comes to the pressing question of Dan Quayle with a bracing supply of irreverence. It is apparent from "Imperial Caddy," Queenan's penetrating skin-depth study of the incumbent vice president, that he holds Dan Quayle in slight regard and Marilyn Quayle in no regard at all, perhaps indeed in negative regard, but he goes beyond such frivolous considerations to ask the only question that really counts: Who cares?</br></br>Or, to put another way: Is there any point in caring since it really doesn't matter? Queenan is of the persuasion - one that finds new adherents every time a national administration swings into "action" - that the presidency and vice presidency are essentially irrelevant. The "Ur-truth about the American system of government," he says, is: "It takes a licking but it keeps on ticking. If 24 lawyer presidents and 32 lawyer vice presidents couldn't destroy it during its first two centuries of existence, nothing can."</br></br>Thus it is that Queenan views the possibility of a Quayle presidency - the possibility seemed considerably more real as he was writing than it does at the moment - with sublime equanimity. He does worry a bit about what it might do to the stock market, not to mention the market in Quayle autographs, but beyond that he is of the view that Quayle "would just be another forgettable chief executive in another era when the rest of us simply got on with our business, which is, for the most part, business."</br></br>This is a statement calculated to infuriate those on both sides of the political Maginot Line who really do believe that the fate of humankind hangs in the balance each election day, but then, calculated provocation is Queenan's stock in trade. In the course of his meandering inquiry into the Quayle psyche he manages to take swipes at every target that passes his way. One of these is the great state of Indiana, which harbors a "strange mixture of gullibility, mediocrity and weirdness," and which boasts the nation's oddest favorite sons and daughters: "Nobody gets famous in {Indiana} unless he or she has a really strange name. George Barr McKutcheon. Booth Tarkington. W. Axl Rose. Edward Eggleston. David Lee Roth. Kurt Vonnegut. Deanna Mertle. LaToya Jackson. Cole Porter. Thelma Cudlipp. Bear in mind that the Senate seat won by James Danforth Quayle in 1980 had been occupied for the previous 18 years by a man named Birch Bayh, who had won the seat from an 18-year veteran named Homer Capehart. J. Danforth Quayle got into politics at the behest of a Hoosier big shot named Orvas Beers, and the principal influence in his life has been his grandfather Eugene C. Pulliam, a conservative who simply hated people like Birch Bayh and, were he alive, would probably hate the current occupant of the governor's mansion - Evan Bayh - even more. In Indiana, even the fictional characters - Carrie Meeber, Kilgore Trout - have weird names. Jesus, what kind of name is Ben-Hur?"</br></br>No Hoosier arouses Queenan to greater scorn than Marilyn Quayle. "Something in the way she moved suggested a space oddity," he says, and later calls her a "truly gothic American archetype" possessed of "supreme weirdness." Reaching back into ancient history he recalls one wit's observation about Thomas E. Dewey - "You have to know Mr. Dewey very well in order to dislike him" - and adds: "Ditto Marilyn Quayle." | no | 0 |
Vows Continuity On Foreign Policy In Hill Address: Ford Planning A 'Summit' to Fight Inflation | President Ford told a joint session of Congress last night that he would convene a domestic ÛÏsummit meetingÛ to find the right answers to fight inflation and he pledged ÛÏcontinuityÛ in the conduct of foreign policy.</br></br>In his first address to Congress, the new President also pledged that there will be no illegal wiretaps,</br></br>Members of the House and Senate, who interrupted the speech more than 30 times with applause, greeted their former colleague warmly and even enthusiastically after the congressional-executive conflict of the last two years which ended in President NixonÛªs resignation Friday.</br></br>The former congressman and former Vice President spoke in strong, measured tones and seemed to be completely at home in the chamber where he served for a quarter of a century.</br></br>Stressing the theme of national unity, Mr. Ford said that his motto toward Congress would be ÛÏcommunication, conciliation, compromise and cooperation.Û | no | 0 |
Stocks Become More Stable | NEW YORK, May 5 (tf)ÛÓA new study published today indicates the stock market is becoming more and more stable over the years.</br></br>The New York Stock Exchange in'a survey sought the reasons back of every major market change of the last 21 years and tried to detennine what kind of a pattern was created.</br></br>The results will be published Monday in ÛÏThe Exchange,Û the official magazine of the New York Stock Exchange.</br></br>From the survey it was concluded that ÛÏthe market, on a day-to-day basis, seems to have gradually become more stable over the past two decades. There is some evidence, too, that the marketÛªs annual price movements have become less pronounced. This trend becomes even more apparent when the marketÛªs action is traced back to 1920.</br></br>1 more sensitive to news inher-! ently or potentially unfavorable to the market than to favorable developments. To put it another way, the market found it easier, during the 21-year period studied, to decline suddenly than to advance. | no | 0 |
Amid Specters of Governors Past, Warner Has Little to Cheer | L. Douglas Wilder is a fairly benign spirit, bringing glad tidings of great budget savings -- or at least some help in closing a $1 billion shortfall. Wilder, governor in the early 1990s and chairman of a special Warner commission on government efficiency, is a fellow Democrat and on-again, off-again chum of Warner's. Their friendship is on at the moment.</br></br>The other, more worrisome specter is that of James S. Gilmore III, whose tax-cutting legacy from the late 1990s is costing state government $1 billion a year and rising. Gilmore's Republican tax cut is the gift that keeps on giving -- or, in Warner's case, that keeps on taking a major bite out of the state treasury that's been limping along for a year.</br></br>Gilmore and Wilder couldn't be more different, but their budget experiences hold some powerful lessons for their younger successor, especially in this gloomy fiscal season.</br></br>Five days before Christmas, Warner will unveil a state budget that, because he has no other options, will cut once-inviolate programs so deeply that advocates for schoolchildren, the poor and the sick will run screaming from Richmond. To borrow the earthy imagery of Warner's senior finance adviser, sacred cows will be slaughtered on Dec. 20. Things will get ugly in the halls of the General Assembly.</br></br>In 1990-91, Wilder was in a similar jam, scratching his way through a recession and determined to survive without raising taxes. As the nation's first elected black governor, Wilder became a hero to Virginia's conservative white establishment by surpassing all expectations, shedding his big-spending Democratic ways and cutting the budget to the bone. | no | 0 |
Bond Prices Climb Due to Dollar's Gain And Outlook for Accord in Budget Talks | NEW YORK -- A stronger dollar and speculation that an agreement is near on cutting the government's budget deficit helped propel bond prices higher yesterday.</br></br>Prices of long-term Treasury issues advanced by about three-eighths of a point, or around $3.75 for each $1,000 face amount. But trading volume was sluggish as dealers awaited details of the lengthy budget negotiations between Reagan administration officials and congressional leaders.</br></br>"Right now, the government market is a captive of the budgetary process," said Alfred G. Roth, senior vice president at Thomson McKinnon Securities Inc. "Nobody is willing to make a substantive commitment until we see something definitive coming out of Washington on the budget."</br></br>The seemingly never-ending budget talks failed to produce an agreement yesterday. However, White House and congressional negotiators have said they are optimistic about reaching a compromise accord of roughly $30 billion before Friday, when across-the-board cuts are scheduled to go into effect under the Gramm-Rudman law.</br></br>"If we don't get a deficit reduction of $30 billion or more, it's not going to sit well with investors," contended Donald E. Maude, chief economist at Midland Montagu Capital Markets Inc. in San Francisco. | yes | 1 |
Fixed Rates Dip With Stock Market | Mortgage rates fell this week to the lowest level in 20 months in a side effect of the seesawing stock market.</br></br>The decline in the average rate on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages to 7.21 percent from 7.35 percent a week earlier brought the average to its lowest level since the week ended Feb. 15, 1996, Freddie Mac, the mortgage-funding company, reported. It was the biggest drop in six weeks.</br></br>Mortgage rates this week keyed off the U.S. Treasury securities market, where rates fell as investors snapped up bonds in a "flight to quality."</br></br>Before stock market turmoil spread around the world from Southeast Asia, economists were predicting mortgage rates would drift up in the last part of the year.</br></br>Thirty-year mortgage rates hit a peak for the year so far of 8.18 percent in early April, after the Federal Reserve last tightened monetary policy. | no | 0 |
Flight to Quality Benefits Three Fund Firms | FINANCIAL PLANNER Joseph Lyons recently moved client assets out of a Putnam Investments mutual fund whose manager allegedly made improper trades in its shares. Mr. Lyons didn't move it out of the stock market. He chose another stock mutual fund, managed by Morgan Stanley.</br></br>Like many others, he wants to avoid funds tainted by the sprawling mutual-fund trading scandal that erupted in early September, but he isn't giving up on stocks. It's hard to resist a market that seemingly keeps going up. Enthusiasm for stocks pushed the Dow Jones Industrial Average through the 10000 mark yesterday, the highest level in 18 months.</br></br>After a family discussion of the issues, 43-year-old Mr. Lyons, who works with investment firm Linsco Private Ledger, in Walnut Creek, Calif., shifted his wife's retirement holdings from several Putnam Investment funds to some Fidelity Investments portfolios. He's out to protect his clients' -- and his family's -- interests.</br></br>"As long as the stock market is doing well, people will keep investing," says Steve Henningsen, a financial adviser with the Wealth Conservancy in Boulder, Colo. "It's kind of weird this scandal hasn't chased people from funds."</br></br>Although many irate individuals and institutions have unloaded holdings of funds run by Putnam Investments, which has settled federal charges in the matter, and Strong Capital Management, which is under investigation but hasn't been charged with any wrongdoing, and other firms implicated in the scandal, money flowing into the fund industry as a whole has been surprisingly robust. From the start of September through the end of last month, stock mutual funds took in more than $63 billion, their highest three-month intake since early 2000 when stock prices peaked, according to flow-tracker AMG Data Services. This money has helped fuel the stock market's rise. | no | 0 |
For Syms, a Final Markdown; Discounter Will Liquidate Its Namesake Chain and Filene's | Half a century ago, Sy Syms helped pioneer the sale of name-brand apparel and other goods at discount prices. Now, the company he founded is taking its own cue from his strategy: If you can't sell it, liquidate.</br></br>Syms Corp. and its subsidiary, Filene's Basement LLC, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Wednesday. The retailer, which put itself up for sale in May but found no buyers, said it will sell its inventory and real estate and shut down, rather than try to stay in business.</br></br>The Secaucus, N.J., company, which has 2,500 employees and operates 46 stores under its Syms and Filene's Basement banners, said in its filing that the chains posted significant operating losses for the past two years as creditors toughened their payment terms, competitors proliferated and big apparel brands did a better job of managing their inventories. That left fewer overruns for Syms and other discounters to sell.</br></br>Syms, which was founded in 1959, compounded those pressures by snapping up Filene's Basement for more than $65 million in a bankruptcy-court auction two years ago, expecting to reap cost savings that never materialized. In its most recent quarter, which ended Aug. 27, Syms had a loss of $11.5 million, compared with a year-earlier loss of $10.9 million.</br></br>Its decision to start winding up its business ahead of the crucial holiday sales season, and at a time when the sputtering economy has sent waves of new consumers to fellow discounters like TJX Cos. and Ross Stores Inc., underscores the company's precarious financial position. | no | 0 |
Voices: Valerie Porter, on Advisers Becoming Better Business People | Voices is an occasional column that allows wealth managers to address issues of interest to the advisory community. Valerie Porter is the director of the Financial Planning Association's Research and Practice Institute, as well as president of SummitView Financial in Indianapolis.</br></br>In 2012 I started working as a consultant for the Financial Planning Association. FPA was interested in creating a Research and Practice Institute to gather information about practice management for its 23,000 members. There are lots of tools and resources available online for financial planners, but little empirical data regarding how advisory firms are actually run.</br></br>A lot of advisers are great technicians, or great at planning or investments. But many struggle with the business side of their practice. So we created quarterly surveys to ask advisers about the technical aspects of practice management such as their time management and productivity. Our goal is to use the responses from quarterly surveys to identify how advisers can become better business people.</br></br>The first pilot survey was conducted in the fall of 2013. It was designed as a broad baseline study, to get a feel for what's happening in the industry overall as it relates to practice management. We'd hoped to receive 1,000 responses to this first survey, but we received 2,400, which indicated a big interest.</br></br>This inaugural study showed several performance-related gaps. Advisers agreed that effective time management is important to their business success, but that they struggle in this area. For example, most advisers don't have formal practices and systems in place to ensure for efficiency. Additionally, younger advisers and female advisers indicated that they had no access to a formal training system geared specifically toward them and that they would be interested in participating in one. | no | 0 |
Inflation Estimates Creep Up; Getting a Fix on Prices and Oil Grows Increasingly Crucial | THE FINANCIAL markets could use a few good inflation watchers these days as soaring oil prices and a strong economy stoke concerns about rising consumer prices.</br></br>Among economists regularly surveyed by The Wall Street Journal, two have stood out for their ability to forecast inflation: Gail Fosler, chief economist at the Conference Board, and Maria Fiorini Ramirez, of MFR Inc. Unfortunately, for those in need of guidance, the two economists now see things very differently. Ms. Fosler expects inflation to pick up by year's end while Ms. Ramirez sees inflation easing off a bit.</br></br>Collectively, the 56 economists in the Journal surveys have been expecting headline inflation to move down from the 3% rate posted early in the year, as prices for energy and other commodities ease. The consensus of the economists who participated in the latest monthly survey is that the consumer-price index will rise 2.5% on an annual basis by year's end. But that consensus is creeping up. The group was looking for a CPI increase of 2.3% two months ago.</br></br>Getting a fix on inflation and oil is becoming increasingly important. Higher consumer inflation could push up interest rates and erode the purchasing power of households, which could eventually derail economic growth. Right now the economy is sending off mixed signals on the outlook. While commodity prices have soared, manufacturers have had difficulty passing higher costs on to consumers.</br></br>Forecasts reflect the confusion. Among economists who have participated in the survey for at least three years, only nine accurately predicted the inflation rate would slow in 2003, when it dipped below 2%, and then accelerate again in 2004, when it shot up over 3%. | no | 0 |
U.S. Unveils New Global Economic Plan --- IMF Would Assist Nations Hurt By Investor Panic Despite Sound Policies | WASHINGTON -- The Clinton administration unveiled its plan to stanch the global economic crisis, including a new preapproved credit line for countries that fall victim to investor panic despite sound economic policies.</br></br>With financial chaos rolling over East Asia and Russia, and threatening Brazil as well, the U.S. put forth a wish list that sharpens some old tools and offers some new initiatives, but adds no new money to the international response to the crisis beyond already-requested funding.</br></br>The key element is the new preapproved contingency fund under the International Monetary Fund, a proposal that finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of Seven major industrialized nations agreed to "explore" at their meeting Saturday night. The G-7 gave a warmer endorsement to U.S. calls for more multilateral lending to battle poverty and fix troubled banking systems, as well as a U.S. plan to use multilateral guarantees to encourage private investors to put their money back into emerging markets.</br></br>The IMF proposal, however, is likely to prove the most controversial element of the U.S. initiative.</br></br>While other IMF loans require borrowing countries to agree to implement often-austere economic policies before they get loans, this new approach would be for countries whose policies the IMF judges to be sound already. But the idea appears to challenge the IMF's traditional insistence on strict conditions on its loans; without such conditions, the IMF and others have argued, IMF money may be wasted. | no | 0 |
How Can Ford Survive? And Other Auto Questions: How Can Ford Survive? And Other Auto Qui | The toll of the 1980 recession on the countryÛªs vulnerable auto companies is being spelled out this week in their staggering financial losses reported for the three months ending Sept. 30.</br></br>Ford Motor Co., Chrysler Corp., and General Motors Corp. performed a version of ÛÏcan you top this,Û showing combined losses of $1.7 billion for the third quarter and bringing their losses this year thus far to $3.6 billion.</br></br>An obvious question is, how can a firm such as Ford suffer a loss of $595 million in just three months and still be in business? How can any firm survive such steep losses?</br></br>Using Ford as an example, the answer is that its losses, although huge, have not yet reached a critical point, said David Healy, a Wall Street ana- lyst of the auto industry. The banks it borrows from, the suppliers that make its car components, and its investors still believe that FordÛªs sales will pick up this fall, beginning a gradual recovery. ÛÏI donÛªt think they could keep it up much longer, though,Û said Healy, who is with the firm Drexel Burnham Lambert.</br></br>ANSWER: Ford was wracked by a three-way whiplash in the third quarter: Its sales were badly hurt by this yearÛªs recession and the consumerÛªs rejection of its large cars, and to meet stiff import competition it has had to make unprecedented investments to change over its manufacturing plants to produce smaller carsÛÓin a hurry. | no | 0 |
Dollar Declines as Players Take Profits From Rally and After Fed Boosts Rates | NEW YORK -- The dollar sagged yesterday, as news of a widely anticipated 0.50-percentage point rate increase by the Federal Reserve provided an excuse to take profits on Tuesday's powerful dollar rally.</br></br>The dollar also was depressed by the sell-off in U.S. Treasurys that followed the Fed's action, with bond-market participants concerned that U.S. economic growth will remain buoyant and thus prompt further Fed rate boosts.</br></br>The Federal Reserve decided at its policy-setting meeting yesterday to lift to 6% its Fed funds rate, or the rate banks charge each other for overnight loans. The Fed also raised to 5.25% the discount rate, or the rate at which it sells money to banks.</br></br>Explaining its decision, the Fed said that "despite tentative signs of some moderation in growth, economic activity has continued to advance at a substantial pace."</br></br>Traders, who had amassed dollars on Tuesday with the announcement of President Clinton's new aid package for Mexico, abruptly dumped them when the Fed made its announcement. The dollar fell quickly to intraday lows of 1.5150 marks and 98.85 yen within minutes of the Fed's statement; it recovered a little later in the session. | yes | 1 |
Back to Piecework: Many Companies Now Base Workers' Raises On Their Productivity --- Employees Who Lag Behind Stand to Lose Their Jobs In BankAmerica Division --- Bottom of the Fifth Quintile | Denise Wise, a San Francisco office worker who processes payroll accounts in BankAmerica Corp.'s business-services division, has earned $4,000 in incentive bonuses this year under a pay-for-performance plan designed to reward the productive and punish the deadwood among the bank giant's 86,000 employees.</br></br>She is understandably happy with pay-for-performance. "If you work effectively, there's something in it for you," Ms. Wise says. "That {incentive} wasn't always there before."</br></br>But three of 24 colleagues in her office weren't pleased at all. Although the office achieved 100% of its incentive-plan goals in the first quarter of this year, the three, including a man who had worked there for more than 20 years, didn't get any bonus money at all because their individual performance lagged behind the group's. That long-time employee eventually left the company, Ms. Wise says.</br></br>Pay-for-performance can be ruthless, but it is nonetheless one of the hottest management and labor trends around, according to compensation consulting firms. Under such plans, middle- or lower-level workers are supposed to be judged as their high-powered executive bosses often are, receiving higher raises, bonuses or prizes for excelling on a variety of specific and often computerized measurement indexes. Employees who don't measure up receive little or no pay raise, or are even fired.</br></br>A recent survey of 600 companies by Hay Management Consultants found that one-third intend to push pay-for-performance down the corporate ladder; about 11% currently do so. Another survey, by Hewitt Associates, finds a surprising surge in the use of incentive bonuses for all sorts of workers. | no | 0 |
Ultrashort Bond Funds: Are They Ultrasafe?; These funds are favorites again, five years after big losses. | With short-term interest rates remaining locked near zero, yield-starved investors have been turning to "ultrashort" bond funds as a safe place to stash their cash. Attracted by yields on ultrashort funds ranging mostly between 0.2% and 1.3%, investors shifted $9.6 billion into the group during the first seven months of 2013, according to Morningstar Inc.</br></br>Fund companies, meanwhile, have been rolling out new offerings, including ultrashort exchange-traded bond funds.</br></br>These funds, which invest in bonds typically maturing in less than one year, are likely to suffer smaller losses than other bond funds when interest rates rise. Yet investors need to remember that they can lose money; they're not a money-market substitute. And within the group there's a range of strategies carrying different risks.</br></br>Some investors with a long memory may recently have gotten a reminder of how ultrashort bond funds can fail to protect investor money: Last month, Charles Schwab Corp.'s fund unit filed with regulators to offer a series of ultrashort ETFs. The Schwab YieldPlus mutual fund lost 35% during the financial crisis in 2008, resulting in the company agreeing to pay a $119 million fine to settle civil charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission that it had allegedly misled investors about the safety of the fund. (Schwab didn't admit or deny guilt.)</br></br>It's unclear from the new filings how the ETFs will differ from the YieldPlus strategy. A Schwab spokeswoman says the strategies are different from "other Schwab funds and ETFs currently or previously offered." But she declines to comment further, citing the "quiet period" around the fund filings. | no | 0 |
THE WASHINGTON POST Thursday. June 29.1978 | David Gartner defended, his controversial appointment to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission yesterday before a Senate committee that was more critical of the White HouseÛªs handling of the affair than of GartnerÛªs possible conflicts of interest.</br></br>Several members of the Senate Agriculture Committee said they would not approve Gartner for the $50,000-a-year post if they had it to do over again. But as Chairman Herman Tab madge (D-Ga.) noted, ÛÏthis committee can do nothingÛ now that Gartner has been confirmed.</br></br>Gartner continued to defy President CarterÛªs demand for his resignation, telling the committee, ÛÏIf he (the president) called me right after this committee meeting I would have to tell him I wonÛªt quit.Û .ÐÊ The Treasury Department said yesterday that it has made a preliminary determination that the European Community illegally subsidized shipments of 50,009 tons of sugar to the United States over the last week.</br></br>ÛÏTile Treasury action comes as U.S. and EC negotiators are trying to reach an agreement on a code for government subsidies of exports, but U.S. trade officials said the quick countervailing duty investigation of the sugar imports was not an attempt to put pressure on the EC.</br></br>At stake in the case is the European CommunityÛªs so-called common agricultural policy that sets high internal prices in Europe for domestic farm | no | 0 |
Millennium's Chief to Resign | Richard I. Linhart, who was hired as chief executive and chairman of Reston-based Millennium Bankshares in 2007 to help turn the struggling company's operations around, will resign at the end of the month.</br></br>Linhart, a longtime local banker, has led the company through a period of increased scrutiny from regulators as the housing downturn has taken a toll on Millennium's finances.</br></br>The company, which operates four branches of Millennium Bank in Northern Virginia, said in a statement that Linhart resigned for "personal reasons" and intends to retire. John F. Novak, executive vice president and chief operating officer, will succeed him. Neither Linhart nor Novak returned calls for further comment.</br></br>"Dick Linhart has done a great job in leading the bank through some very rough patches," Novak said in the company's statement. "Hopefully, with the groundwork laid and the vision clearly defined, the organization can move more quickly toward becoming, once again, a competitive, profitable community bank in Northern Virginia."</br></br>In January 2008, the company disclosed that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency had ordered it to improve its financial condition. In June, the bank said it had signed an agreement with the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond in which it agreed to get approval before paying cash dividends, making quarterly interest payments on some of its securities, adding directors and making certain promotions. | no | 0 |
Pendulum Swings for Retirement Charges | Rising rates and a banner year for stocks could lift earnings at some large companies that have made an arcane but significant change to the way their pension plans are valued.</br></br>Companies including AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. could show stronger results than some expect when they report fourth-quarter earnings in coming weeks. They and about 30 other companies in the past few years switched to "mark-to-market" pension accounting to make it easier for investors to gauge plan performance.</br></br>With the switch, pension gains and losses flow into earnings sooner than under the old rules, which are still in effect and allow companies to smooth out the impact over several years. Companies that switch to valuing assets at up-to-date market prices may incur more volatility in their earnings, but it offers a more current picture of a pension plan's health and its contribution to the bottom line.</br></br>In 2011 and 2012, that change hurt the companies' earnings, largely because interest rates were falling at the time. But for 2013, it may be a big help to them, accounting experts said, a factor of the year's surge in interest rates and strong stock-market performance.</br></br>"It's going to account for a huge rise in operating earnings" at the affected companies, said Dan Mahoney, director of research at accounting-research firm CFRA. | yes | 1 |
PEOPLE PATTERNS | Some Immigrant Groups</br></br>Surpass Native Yanks</br></br>IMMIGRANTS to the U.S. generally have less education, higher unemployment rates and lower earnings than native-born Americans. But within many ethnic groups, immigrants fare better in some ways than native-born people.</br></br>One in four immigrants age 25 to 54 has no high-school education, according to a 1989 Census Bureau survey analyzed by economist Joseph R. Meisenheimer II for the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Fewer than 4% of working-age, native-born Americans have as little schooling.</br></br>Both immigrant and native-born Hispanics have less schooling than average. Hispanics account for nearly half of the working-age immigrant population, but 43% of Hispanic immigrants have no high-school education, triple the proportion of native-born Hispanics. | no | 0 |
Microcap Funds Climbed 5.54% During August --- Group Claimed No. 1 Spot Among Equity Stocks; Lack of Sellers Is Cited | NEW YORK -- Small was beautiful in August as microcap stock funds picked up steam and posted the best returns among domestic equity funds.</br></br>However, investors may not want to build their hopes too high for microcap funds, which typically invest in companies with market capitalizations of less than $300 million. Observers say the sector's gains weren't so much the result of increased buying of microcap stocks, but rather a lack of selling as the rest of the stock market headed lower.</br></br>According to Lipper Analytical Services Inc., microcap funds provided investors with a 5.54% return in August. And while that was the smallest monthly gain for the group since April, it topped all other categories of equity funds during August. The closest sector was small-cap funds, which posted a 1.83% gain for the month.</br></br>Funds that had been the big winners all year -- funds tied to the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index -- were the big losers among domestic stock funds in August, dropping 5.59%.</br></br>Over the past 13 weeks, microcap stocks are well ahead of all other domestic equity funds, with a nearly 19% gain since June 6. S&P 500 funds are up 10.66% in the same period. Growth funds, which tend to invest in larger companies, are up 12.21%. | yes | 1 |
Stocks Matter, But Jobs Matter More | For anyone with an interest in the Great Depression, certain phrases set off chills. So when Anthony M. Santomero, president of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank, declared this week that economic recovery was "just around the corner," he must have been unaware that he was paraphrasing Herbert Hoover.</br></br>The Federal Reserve's interest rate cut on Wednesday may, temporarily anyway, restore some of Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan's popularity. Accused of foot-dragging on the matter of priming a sluggish economy, Greenspan now seems in a full-speed-ahead mood to get things moving again.</br></br>But the Fed's action also is a sign of how worried the economic masters of the universe are about our nation's slowdown. In the dry language of Fedspeak, "the risks are weighted mainly toward conditions that may generate economic weakness in the foreseeable future." If a good inflation-phobe like Greenspan believes this, it's hard for anyone to disagree.</br></br>The question is whether our sustained national experiment with very low unemployment is about to end. The unemployment rate has spiked up, and the news of layoffs suggests the numbers are likely to get worse this year. For all the media focus on stock prices, it's unemployment that has real human and social impact.</br></br>With all those cable stations running the market ticker at the bottom of their screens all day long, it's hard to remember that in the economic lives of most people, stocks play a limited role. As David Leonhardt of the New York Times put it this week, "Relatively few Americans rely on them for a significant portion of their income." It's an antique notion, I know, but jobs really matter. | no | 0 |
XJ.S. Repeats Pledge on Gold: U.S. Repeats Pledge to Back Dollar | Treasury Secretary Henry H. Fowler anti Federal Reserve Chairman 'William McChesney Martin yesterday reaffirmed U.S. ÛÏdetermination to maintain the gold value of the dollar.Û</br></br>At the same time, their joint statement denied news reports of various plans to strengthen the international gold pool centered in London. ÛÏThe operation of the London market gold market will continue unchanged,Û Fowler and Martin said.</br></br>said the intent of this phrase was to say to gold speculators: ÛÏYouÛªre betting on the wrong horse, but if you want gold, come to London and get it.Û</br></br>The official categorically denied a story in The Washington Post yesterday, and ones in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal on Friday, that reported varying plans to alter or improve the operations oft he London gold pool.</br></br>The Post story said that the seven gold pool nations planned to deposit a stockpile of gold in London as a discouragement to specula- lion, and receive in exchange certificates of deposit that would count in each countryÛªs foreign exchange reserves. | no | 0 |
Layoffs Seen As Md. Curbs State Spending: Schaefer Warns Of Further Cuts STATE SPENDD | ANNAPOLIS. Nov. 27ÛÓMaryland Gov. William Donald Schaefer today raised the possibility of layoffs of state workers as the legislature's top budget officers voted to adopt the strictest limit on state spending since the recession of the early 1980s.</br></br>Schaefer already has pared nearly $180 million from the current yearÛªs planned spending and may have to cut another $100 million to prevent a deficit. Today, he said: ÛÏIf the economic trend continues, we may have to give thought to furloughs and layoffs. We may also look at some early retirements.Û</br></br>His statements came shortly after a nervous Spending Affordability Committee voted for a tough spending limit. The joint committee of legislative budget leaders said state spending should not expand more than 5.1 percent in the budget Schaefer submits to the legislature in January. (Over the last five years, the panelÛªs recommended growth rates have ranged from 7 to almost 9 percent.) Other than a higher gasoline tax, the panel said, additional taxes should be ÛÏa last resort." ÛÏThe message is: This isn't the time to think about expansion of state government; itÛªs a time for contraction,Û said Sen. Laurence Levitan (D-Montgomery), chairman of the Budget and Taxation Committee.</br></br>Schaefer, who has often feuded with lawmakers over spending limits, responded that he will try to live within the guidelines. ÛÏThere will be anguish and cries,Û the governor said. ÛÏSome programs that are needed just wonÛªt be there."</br></br>Virtually all of MarylandÛªs suburban counties are taking steps now to cut spending as the economy slows and tax revenue stagnates. Until today, however, Schaefer has staunchly opposed layoffs among the 70,000 state workers. Charles | no | 0 |
Watt Street Prices Fall, Ignoring Carter's Speech | NEW YORK (AP)ÛÓThe.-stock-.inar' ket lapsed Into a mild d.eclin^jjms-terday, registering no emphatic weir-diet either way on President-Carter's economic message. .< ,J* I t</br></br>The Dow Jones, average of 30 industrials dipped 3.47åÈ points to 770.18, breaking a five-session strings of advances in whicbÛªNtbe ayera^e^h'ad climbed 22.61 points.' - V ' i .</br></br>In his address, the president. said he would use his veto power'if necessary to limit the federal budget deficit, and proposed a limit on-pay increases for white collar federal, workers.</br></br>He ruled out any form of.mandatory wage and price controls, calling instead for voluntary cooperation from Congress and private industry in-administration efforts to. curb inflation.</br></br>Robert Stovall,at Dean; Witter, Reynolds Inc. noted that the. White House had given advance notice tha'Fthe message would contain no dramatic new policy moves. ÛÏThe speech was properly heralded as a minor event, and that was what it was,Û Stovall said. | no | 0 |
Weakening Economy Cited as a Factor | In what could be a preview of times to come, Virginia's unemployment rate rose nearly one-half point In June, from 3.8 percent to 4.2 percent, the Virginia Employment Commission reported yesterday.</br></br>Experts said the statewide increase was principally due to an influx of students looking for summer jobs, but the rise in Northern Virginia joblessnessÛÓfrom 2.0 percent to 2.2 percentÛÓalso stemmed from the weakening economy here.</br></br>"In Northern Virginia, it has slackened more than anywhere else.Û said William Mezger, a research econo- mist with the commission. "Jobs in Northern Virginia had been growing at 5 to 7 percent [per year], while the rest of the state was growing by 3 percent. Now it has slowed down.Û</br></br>The Northern Virginia figures, along with information about suburban Maryland and the District, will be used in calculating the June unemployment rate for'the D.C. area, which is also likely to show an increase when it is released Friday. Although the local jobless rate Is one of the lowest urban rates in the nation, it masks slowing area job growth and ill health in such industries as construction, defense, retailing and finance.</br></br>tion slowdown actually appears in the jobless rates for several counties ns far away as 50 miles from Washington. It is from those counties that many of this area's construction workers came, and that is where they have returned as their industry lost 7,500 jobs in Northern Virginia from June 1989 to June 1990. | no | 0 |
Markets Watch, Warily, for a Small Bump in Inflation; Main Price Gauges Are Hovering Near Historic Lows and Are Poised to Drift Upward | The next small steps up in inflation could set off big tremors in financial markets.</br></br>The two main U.S. inflation gauges, the Labor Department's consumer-price index and the Commerce Department's personal consumption expenditures price index, are hovering near the lowest levels ever seen outside of recessions.</br></br>Both sit poised to drift upward. Wholesale and import prices show signs of picking up, suggesting some inflation in the pipeline, and some items that briefly declined in price over the past year--such as prescription drugs, financial fees and garments--have started climbing again.</br></br>"The underlying trends seem to be more positive," said Michael Pond, global head of inflation market strategy at Barclays Capital. "It's not alarming. We won't all of a sudden see very high inflation. There's just a bit more upside than what we've seen over the past year."</br></br>Normally, a move of a couple of tenths of a percentage point in the inflation measures wouldn't matter much to anyone. But the stakes are high now as Federal Reserve officials justify their plan to keep short-term interest rates near zero in part because inflation is running so far below their 2% objective. | no | 0 |
Government watch: Small firms hope FCC will help in wireless bidding | SMALL FIRMS seek breaks in bidding for wireless licenses.</br></br>Auctions of federal licenses for wireless telephone and paging</br></br>services won't begin again until late this year, but small businesses</br></br>already are pressing the Federal Communications Commission to give them</br></br>more help. Because no small companies won in the July auction of | no | 0 |
Reagan Gains Favor in W. Europe: West Europeans Shift Attitudes On Question of 2d Reagan Term | BONN, Oct. 4ÛÓWestern Europeans, impressed by the vigor of the U.S. economic recovery and what appears to be a more conciliatory approach toward the Soviet Union, are looking more favorably at the prospect of a second-term Reagan administration.</br></br>The allies are hopeful that after devoting his first term to building the countryÛªs military strength and self-confidence, a reelected President Reagan would be prepared to take bold initiatives to curtail nuclear weapons and improve relations with Moscow, according to government officials in Paris, London and Bonn.</br></br>ship qualities. Europeans never have been comfortable with the notion of an actor presiding over the worldÛªs most powerful country, nor have they forgotten the gaffes in which Reagan seemed to portray himself as a happy-go-lucky nuclear warrior.</br></br>But in the past year, much of the blame for the hiatus in arms control has been shifted to the Soviet Union. European diplomats are convinced that the decision to walk out of the Geneva arms talks and to freeze East-West dialogue hurt Moscow badly in terms of Western European public opinion and took the pressure off Reagan.</br></br>ÛÏIn the early 1980s, the lack of arms control was in good part Reagan's fault,Û said a British official. | no | 0 |
Bond vigilantes have vanished as prices zoom | The bond vigilantes are acting a lot less vigilant these days.</br></br>There was a time, following the inflation crisis of the early 1980s, when the bond market, regardless of the Federal Reserve's policy, worked to keep a lid on bond prices just to be sure the economy didn't get too steamy. Whenever there were signs that the pace of growth was picking up, the so-called vigilantes would rush to sell, driving interest rates higher and acting as a brake on the economy.</br></br>But if last week was any indication, a new era may be upon us.</br></br>The market is soaring. The yield on the benchmark 30-year bond plummeted to 6.37% from 6.69% in just the past six trading days. Behind it all is a conviction among bond investors and traders that the Federal Reserve won't raise interest rates until inflation actually shows signs of picking up, and recent figures demonstrate that isn't happening, and probably won't, for at least a while.</br></br>Overall, of course, that's good for bonds. But it portends more volatility, and, somewhere down the road, perhaps some brutally painful losses. | yes | 1 |
Regional Report: Economic Focus / Existing-Home Sales | Mortgage Rates and Weather Give a Boost</br></br>Existing-home sales increased briskly in most regions in the fourth quarter of 2001, even compared with strong sales a year earlier, thanks to low mortgage rates for buyers and unseasonably warm weather for builders. East South Central and Great Lakes states showed the biggest gains as their stabilizing manufacturing sectors prompted workers to go ahead with delayed home-buying plans. Similarly, sales in Rocky Mountain states were boosted by workers' confidence in some of their dominant industries, such as New Mexico's defense contractors. But sales were sluggish at best in economies more tied to the information-technology sector, notably Pacific and New England states that were overbuilt with expensive homes prior to the industry's meltdown in 2000. The good news there: Some prices are down, making some of the nation's highest-priced markets more affordable.</br></br>---</br></br>Percentage change from year earlier in existing-home sales</br></br>(4th Qtr. 2001 vs. 4th Qtr. 2000) | yes | 1 |
U.S. Is Shifting Economic Plans To Boost Dollar --- Concessions by Europeans Prompt Efforts to Shape New International Policy | WASHINGTON -- In the wake of European economic concessions, the U.S. is making a subtle but significant shift in its international economic policy to put greater emphasis on supporting the dollar.</br></br>The policy change, which has emerged in recent days, follows last week's major round of interest-rate cuts in Europe, led by West Germany, and the announcement of a West German fiscal-stimulus package.</br></br>Both moves had long been sought by the Reagan administration, and European officials last week called on the U.S. to reciprocate by showing stronger support for the dollar, whose recent depreciation has hurt foreign concerns selling in the U.S.</br></br>The broad policy trade-off accomplishes some of the steps that governments have been hinting would take place at a new meeting of the Group of Seven industrial nations. Thus it may ease pressure to convene such a meeting before year end.</br></br>Since the Oct. 19 stock-market crash, the Reagan administration and the Federal Reserve Board have chosen to emphasize policies that stress easier money in the U.S. to avoid a recession, even if that means higher interest rates aren't available as a tool to prop up the dollar. | no | 0 |
Waiting for a Giant With Fear and Favor; Critics Say a Merger of Credit Card Firms Will Hike Fees, but Others See Competition at Work | Bank of America's plans to buy MBNA Corp., creating a credit card giant, give new fuel to the debate over whether consumers are better served by bigger companies.</br></br>While supporters argued yesterday that the deal would give customers access to a wider array of services, some consumer advocates warned that the merger could reduce competition and drive up interest rates and fees, as well as pose new privacy concerns.</br></br>A merger between Bank of America, the nation's fifth-largest credit card company, and MBNA, the third-largest, would create the largest credit card issuer in the country, as measured by balances outstanding. The company would account for one of every five dollars charged on plastic.</br></br>"This is horrible for consumers," said Robert Manning, a Rochester Institute of Technology professor and author of "Credit Card Nation," a critical look at the credit card industry. "There will be fewer options and fewer big players."</br></br>Consumers, who now are often charged $39 in late fees if their payment arrives past the due date, "can expect $50 late fees coming up on the horizon, within a year or so," Manning said. They also can expect to see the rash of promotional low-interest rate offers shrink, he added. "MBNA was the most generous in balance transfer offers. If that's off the table, this will be the beginning of the end for people with a lot of debt who played the rotating credit card debt game." | no | 0 |
India's Tech Sector Braces for Slowdown | BANGALORE - India's technology sector is bracing for a potential slowdown in growth after the historic U.S. credit downgrade over the weekend, which heightened fears of a double-dip recession in the largest outsourcing market and sparked a sell-off in IT stocks Monday.</br></br>Indian technology companies earn more than 80% of their revenue from the U.S. and Europe. Coupled with a full-blown debt crisis looming over Europe, the Standard & Poor's downgrade of the U.S. debt rating is raising concerns of a return to the recessionary times of 2008, when the local software industry bore the brunt of lower spending by cash-strapped clients.</br></br>The Bombay Stock Exchange technology index closed 4.3% lower Monday, leading the 1.8% downfall in the broader Sensex.</br></br>The downgrade may lead to a slowdown in business in the immediate term, Shami Khorana, president of the Americas division of HCL Technologies Ltd., said late Sunday. Clients in the U.S. might feel cost pressures immediately and go slow in their spending decisions, Mr. Khorana added.</br></br>Shares of HCL, the fourth largest India-listed software exporter by sales, closed down 5.8% at 419.00 rupees ($9.40) after touching their lowest level since December. | no | 0 |
THE WASHINGTON POST Monday, March 16, 108! | More than inflation is pushing up costs of Medicare. While itÛªs true that doctors and hospitals are charging more, thereÛªs also the added cost of new treatments and services.</br></br>For example, take a new device that permits a doctor to monitor blood flow in the brain during open-heart surgery. For years, physicians have been able to keep track of brain waves through electroencephalographic monitoring (called EEGs). Now a company has developed an attachment for an EEG machine that puts brain wave information through a computer and displays it as a series of colored bar graphs on a television screen indicating what the situation is and what it was three minutes earlier.</br></br>The screen, placed near the operating table, gives the anesthetist an immediate benchmark to see if the patient is having a blood flow problem.</br></br>There is no doubt such a device can be helpful during an operation as complicated as open-heart surgery. But is it so necessary for a patient that the government ought to include it in the services that are paid for by Medicare? If itÛªs covered under the gover-ment program, it is certain it will be employed in every operation on a Medicare patient.</br></br>A new government bureau, the National Center for Health Care Technology, has been created to review new medical devices and procedures and recommend to the Health | no | 0 |
Dow Falls 45.95, Late GM Surge Stanches Losses | The Wall Street Journal Online</br></br>A LATE POP by General Motors kept the Dow Jones Industrial Average from sinking into negative territory for 2005.</br></br>Drifting lower all day, the blue-chip average briefly dipped into the red for the year. But a last-minute surge by GM, one of 30 Dow industrial stocks, helped the average trim its losses just before the close. The auto maker's stock gained 2.9% thanks to a report that it is considering giving a board seat to Kirk Kerkorian's Tracinda Corp., which has been buying GM shares and advocating a corporate makeover to invigorate the stock.</br></br>Analysts said the overall decline by stocks was a carry-over from a selloff that began in late trading Tuesday, when investors unloaded stocks after a big rally. The Dow finished yesterday down 45.95 points at 10810.91, leaving it up just 0.26% for the year.</br></br>The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index fell 6.33 points to 1257.37, leaving it up 3.75% for the year, and the Nasdaq Composite Index declined 8.75 points to 2252.01, up 3.52% year-to-date. Treasury-bond prices declined ahead of a 10-year Treasury-note auction today, pushing yields higher. The dollar, which has benefited from rising interest rates in the U.S. and stagnant rates elsewhere, advanced against the euro and yen. | no | 0 |
Questions and Answers With . . . | Since 1976, Finn Caspersen has been chairman of the Hodson Trust, overseeing an annual distribution of grants to four Maryland schools: Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, St. John's College in Annapolis, Hood College in Frederick and Washington College in Chestertown, on the Eastern Shore. This year, each of the four schools will receive more than $1.6 million, according to an announcement last week.</br></br>Caspersen and his staff answered questions from staff writer Darragh Johnson about the Hodson Trust, which has as its motto: "Assisting in the advancement of education for decades."</br></br>A The Hodson Trust was settled in 1920 by the family of Beneficial Corporation founder Colonel Clarence Hodson to support excellence in education. . . . Colonel Hodson spent his youth in Crisfield, Maryland, where at the age of 25 he was elected president of the Bank of Crisfield and was the youngest bank president in the United States at the time. Throughout his 40-year business career, Hodson was director for more than 40 banks, trust and mortgage companies, insurance companies and public utilities. He applied his experience and knowledge to encourage state legislatures to enact laws to make small loans available to working-class Americans at affordable interest rates. His success forced unscrupulous loan sharks out of business.</br></br>Why did the trust select these four colleges as its recipients, instead of spreading the money, over the years, among other schools?</br></br>The trustees have discretion in determining how the gifts will be used. This year, St. John's is using the money to build a new dormitory. Hood's gift will go for scholarships. Washington College is in the midst of a campaign to raise $37 million, so their money will be for challenge grants, and Johns Hopkins is using the money for merit scholarships, summer internships and research on cancer at the medical school. | no | 0 |
Durables Orders Post 0.9% Drop For Last Month --- Bookings for Non-Defense Capital Goods Fall 6.3%, Third Decline in a Row | WASHINGTON -- Orders for durable manufactured products dropped 0.9% in August, while a related indicator of business investment plummeted for the third consecutive month, the Commerce Department said.</br></br>The orders report is a crude and highly volatile measure of business activity, but it does suggest the economy may be slowing more sharply than most economists have predicted.</br></br>Orders for non-defense capital goods, an indicator of business plans to invest in new equipment, plunged 6.3% in August, following a 2.5% decline in July and a 3.2% drop in June. Many analysts had been counting on business investment to propel the economy in coming months, now that consumer spending seems to have slowed. But if orders for capital goods continue to decline and consumer spending stays weak, the economic expansion could fizzle out in the next few months.</br></br>Nevertheless, economic forecasters continue to believe that the economy will perk up this fall. "The key is September and October," said Lawrence Chimerine, chairman of Chase Econometrics in Bala-Cynwyd, Pa. "Some of the weakness in the summer was temporary. My own feeling is we will see moderate growth over the rest of this year and 1985."</br></br>"I think we will see some pickup in the fourth quarter," agreed John McAuley, vice president for economic research at Chemical Bank, New York. Analysts are looking for growth in the nation's output, or gross national product, at an annual rate of 3% to 5% in the fourth quarter after adjustment for inflation, compared with the Commerce Department's estimate of 3.6% for the third quarter. | yes | 1 |
A Gospel of Freedom | ROME -- How felicitous it sounds in Italian: globalizzazione.</br></br>And why not? For much of history, this was globalization. The outlines remain visible still, in the marble of Bernini and Michelangelo, in the Latin ringing the nave of St. Peter's, in the broken imperial columns that have not held a roof for 2,000 years. Respectively they evoke what was once the world order: a common faith, a common language, a common law. The pilgrims who have filled the Eternal City this jubilee year remind us that it is also an order whose better angels retain a power to inspire.</br></br>Clearly Pope John Paul II believes so. For when he looks out at the Third Millennium that begins this Christmas, he sees opportunity: the chance to restore man to his proper footing, in solidarity with his neighbor and obedience to the truth.</br></br>Understandably this has been read as (at best) an exercise in sentimentality or (at worst) a call for some Roman restoration. In fact, this "civilization of solidarity" emanates from the human heart out rather than some central authority down. And a recent Vatican conference suggests that a truly free and truly global economy may be one of its crucial ingredients.</br></br>"Granted, there are significant differences between love of neighbor and business," says the Rev. Robert A. Sirico, president of the Acton Institute. "But perhaps not as many as one might imagine at first." | no | 0 |
Pr. George's Unit Endorses Kelly's Taxing Proposals | countyÛªs expected $25 nfflffiSftrd XF. Devlin, ÛÏbut weÛªre budget deficit. operating in a crisis situation,</br></br>countyÛªs expected $25 nfflffiSftrd XF. Devlin, ÛÏbut weÛªre budget deficit. operating in a crisis situation, voted to send to the full å¤3å¨!]?- to Marlboro and cation the Kelly prop1>MlsW0uld lead to an increase that would tax apartmen ifrdhe property tax.Û ters, cigarettes, and au tomo biles and give the county gen eral taxing authority to raise revenue.</br></br>Should all the measures receive full delegation approval and then be passed by the General Assembly, Kelly said they would raise an additional $12.5 million for the county or half of its projected deficit.</br></br>Even if such measures were passed, their future would still be in doubt as Gov. Marvin Mandel has warned that he opposes any new taxing measures this year.</br></br>The seven-member subcommittee refused today to take a position on two other Kelly tax proposals but decided to send them on to the full 24-member delegation for action. | no | 0 |
GAF's Heyman Seeks Public Partners by Sale of 18% Interest in Unit, Arouses Skepticism | NEW YORK -- Of Samuel Heyman, it might be said that his record in running GAF is surpassed only by his sense of market timing.</br></br>It was evident when he took GAF private, cutting his price by 20% after the 1987 stock market crash and seizing his opportunity at a time when his prowess as a raider deterred potential rivals. Now, stock offerings have returned to fashion, and Mr. Heyman wants the public as his partner.</br></br>He aims to sell 17.4 million new shares, or 18%, of GAF's crown jewel, a specialty chemicals maker known as International Specialty Products. The offering document forecasts a price of roughly $14.50 a share -- a cool 29 times 1990 earnings of 49 cents a share.</br></br>Merrill Lynch, the lead underwriter, won't comment; nor will Mr. Heyman. But if the underwriters -- who launch a marketing blitz today -- follow form, they will, in their first breath, assert that the multiple is a good deal lower relative to earnings estimates for this year and beyond. They will add that International's earnings would be 19 cents a share higher were it not for goodwill and depreciation charges related to its 1989 leveraged buy-out. They will note that insiders aren't selling. And, one expects, they will talk about International's heady, sustained growth.</br></br>Before World War II, International's parent, GAF, was a unit of the German I.G. Farbenindustrie. It was seized by the U.S. in 1942, owned by the feds for 23 years and sold to the public in 1965. The company's strength is said to derive from its German technology, but its performance didn't take off until Mr. Heyman won control in a proxy fight in 1983. During the past eight years, the prospectus notes, "net sales and operating income have increased at average annual compound rates in excess of 13% and 25%, respectively." | no | 0 |
Greenspan Unafraid Of Energy Price Caps; Calif. Problems Ease, Fed Chief Says | In a broad analysis of the state of U.S. energy markets, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan last night disagreed sharply with the Bush administration's argument that capping spot prices for electricity in California would discourage construction of new power plants.</br></br>"Analogies to the economics of office buildings are evident," Greenspan said. "Few office buildings would be constructed in the absence of the ability to reach long-term leases. Short-term rental agreements are no more conducive to new office construction than spot prices for electric power are to the building of new power plants." A copy of the text was released in Washington.</br></br>California's energy problems appear to be easing, but they still represent a "worrisome situation for Californians, certainly," Greenspan said. "And because the state comprises one-eighth of our national [economy], it should be a concern for the U.S. economic outlook as well. Fortunately, the overall effects on the California economy, and on those of its neighboring states, seems to have been modest, at least to date."</br></br>Greenspan noted that large increases in the cost of gasoline and other petroleum products, natural gas, and electricity have hurt the U.S. economy in several ways. The most significant is the reduced profitability of non-energy firms, which has forced many companies to reduce spending for new plants and equipment.</br></br>"As best we can infer, a substantial part of the rise in the total costs of corporations between the second quarter of last year and the first quarter of this year reflected higher energy costs, only a small part of which companies apparently were able to pass through into higher prices" of the things they sell, he said. | yes | 1 |
A Democratic Agenda? | THE DEMOCRATS made much of the fact that in this year's budget resolution they moved away from the president's priorities toward their own by shifting several billion dollars into social welfare programs. It wasn't a lot of money, but these are tight budget times, and the Democrats were able to say it was all they had.</br></br>Now, however, Congress has gone from the budget process of enunciating goals to the appropriations process of carrying them out, and guess what? The appropriations committees, also Democratic, are shifting some of the money back. Interest groups are complaining that the subcommittees with jurisdiction over the programs of the departments of labor, education and health and human services have been given too little money to do the job.</br></br>The question is, which is the Democrats' true face or, put another way, to what extent are they willing to impose costs elsewhere in society to achieve their objectives? The issue has now arisen a second time with the promulgation by the leaders of both houses, as Congress broke for Memorial Day, of a Democratic "action plan for economic recovery and growth." As with the budget resolution, it is once again commendable, responsible - and made up entirely of goals.</br></br>The Democrats' theme is that the middle class and poor were left behind in the Reagan-Bush years and that the Bush administration is now glossing over what has turned out to be more than a short and shallow recession. "We can wait and hope that things will improve, that's the president's course, or we can act. That's our course. Democrats don't think that we can afford just to hope our way into the 21st century," Senate majority leader George Mitchell said yesterday.</br></br>Act how? The Democrats said they were committed to tax relief for the middle class, a strengthening of unemployment compensation, a highway bill to provide both jobs and a modern infrastructure, broader access to health care, increased aid to both higher and elementary and secondary education, a strengthening of the safety net, including the federal feeding programs for the poor, and "an aggressive energy policy." | no | 0 |
Trades, Prices, Dow Off in Second Session | 5 NEW YORK, Aug. 19 (ITÛªD .ÛÓ The slock market, backin',' off from huge gains made ! early in the week, was driven ; down by profit taking today ; for the second day in a row.</br></br>] Turnover, however, shrank to 14,190,000 shares, well | below the 20.iitl0.000 shares Wednesday, and down sharply from the record 31,720.000 shares traded on Monday.</br></br>The Dow Jones industrial average fell 5.40 to 880.77, bringing the two-day slide toj 'more than 19 points, chopping' nearly half the gain of the: ; weekÛªs first two sessions j which came on the heels of ; President Nixon's dramatic an-j nouneemenl of a plan to bring back prosperity.</br></br>Standard A PoorÛªs 500-stock index showed a loss of 0.44 at. 98.10. while the average price ,of a NYSE common share dropped 19 cents. Declines outnumbered advances, 893 to 478 among 1,651 issues crossing the tape.</br></br>A report that the mutual fund industry had net redemptions for the third consecutive ; month in July and protests : from a number of labor groups about the portion of Nixon's program dealing with a 90-day wage freeze, were other factors making investors a little wary. | no | 0 |
HCL Technologies Expects Deal Wins to Boost U.S. Sales | Author: Dhanya Ann Thoppil</br></br>BANGALORE -- India's HCL Technologies Ltd. expects the improving economic climate in the U.S. and recently won large orders to spur revenue growth in its largest outsourcing market in April-June, after a blip in sales growth from the region in the just-ended quarter.</br></br>"The overall economic environment in the U.S. is looking positive and that should be reflected accordingly [in the ongoing quarter's revenue]," HCL America Inc. President Shami Khorana said in a recent interview.</br></br>HCL Technologies is India's fourth-largest software exporter by sales and gets more than half its revenue from the U.S.</br></br>But even as the U.S. grapples with a bloated fiscal deficit and political discord on tackling the mounting debt, Mr. Khorana expects clients' technology spending to gather pace, taking cues from positive economic data such as the rising stock market and climbing pending home sales. | yes | 1 |
Reigning Wisdom's Shaky Economic Ground | Many economists and economic scribes have arrived at a particular gloomy paradigm to describe the current U.S. economy. This consensus is surprising because the paradigm itself is seriously flawed.</br></br>The paradigm consists of four propositions: First, government deficits are responsible for high interest rates; second, high interest rates are responsible for the "overvalued" dollar; third, the overvalued dollar is responsible for the huge increase in the U.S. trade deficit; and, finally, the trade deficit is just plain bad.</br></br>The validity of the propositions is limited and decreases rapidly as one moves down the list.</br></br>Consider the first proposition. As Treasury Secretary Donald Regan keeps reminding us, empirical analysis shows no statistically significant historical relationship between budget deficits and interest rates. Over the past three years, while the deficit has more than tripled, the prime rate -- the base interest rate that commercial banks charge on loans to their biggest borrowers with the best credit ratings -- has fallen to 11% from 18.9%. Adjusting interest rates for inflation to approximate the "real" rate of interest doesn't change the picture very much: During the same period the real rate fell to 7% from 10%, notwithstanding the tripled deficit.</br></br>Nevertheless, there is common-sense validity to the notion that larger government borrowing will, other things being equal, exert upward pressure on rates. (However, one point that's usually neglected by those who advance this argument is that efforts to reduce the deficit by increasing taxes may also exert upward pressure on interest rates because increased taxes will result in decreased private savings, rather than simply in reduced private spending.) | yes | 1 |
Silver Flirts With $50 | Author: Matt Whittaker</br></br>NEW YORK--Silver prices soared toward $50 an ounce, though they pulled back sharply toward the end of the day, sparking some speculation that the metal's stunning three-month rally may be nearing an end.</br></br>At one point during the day, silver futures were up 8.2% at $49.82 an ounce. They closed at $47.1510, still the highest in 31 years. Prices have jumped 52% this year, and the intraday high exceeded the nominal closing record of $48.70 set back in 1980. The failure to reach $50 an ounce is one sign that the rally may be losing steam.</br></br>"The way we've come off, there's a possibility we've seen a high for the near term," said Frank Lesh, a broker and futures analyst with FuturePath Trading.</br></br>Silver is riding on the coattails of gold, as investors have flocked to precious metals due to their safe-haven status amid a weakening dollar. Silver's gains have recently outpaced those of gold futures, which on Monday settled 0.4% higher at a new record of $1,508.60 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gold is up 6% year-to-date. | no | 0 |
Citigroup's `Subprime' Reforms Questioned | New York -- HOW ANONYMOUS are mystery shoppers if store employees know they're coming?</br></br>In response to criticism of its consumer-lending practices, Citigroup Inc. almost two years ago said it would send undercover personnel to vet its consumer-finance branches, which included those of the newly purchased Associates First Capital Corp. and its own CitiFinancial unit. Soon after the program was announced, CitiFinancial telegraphed the visits to its employees.</br></br>"We will begin a Mystery Shopping Test in December and complete in January," said a November 2000 CitiFinancial memo to regional managers in the Southeast, according to a copy recently submitted to regulators. "A minority and a caucasian will visit the same or separate branches and request an identical loan."</br></br>The mystery shoppers were one of several reforms that Citigroup, the nation's largest financial-services firm, said at the time it would introduce to answer criticism of its purchase of Associates, a Dallas-based "subprime" lender to people with spotty credit records who are often turned away by mainstream banks.</br></br>Citigroup officials cite those reforms as evidence that its own CitiFinancial subprime lending operation, into which Associates was merged, is the cleanest of its kind in an industry long-sullied by dodgy practices such as frequently refinancing loans to generate fees. They add that notification to employees about mystery shopping is an effective way to keep workers alert at all times. | no | 0 |
Dollar Closes Slightly Higher Ahead of Federal Reserve Meeting | Dow Jones Newswires</br></br>NEW YORK -- The dollar failed to stage much of a comeback against the euro yesterday, ahead of a Federal Reserve rate-setting meeting, hurt by indications that U.S. industrial production is growing at a slower pace than anticipated.</br></br>Meanwhile, the Swedish krona fell sharply following a vote by Swedes to resoundingly reject membership of European Monetary Union, although it recouped some of its losses. Late yesterday in New York, the euro was trading at 9.1439 kronor, sharply higher than 9.0760 kronor late Friday, but well below the 9.20 kronor it had reached on the back of the rejection.</br></br>Observers said the result illustrates the gap between the goals and visions of the E.U.'s political and business elite on one hand and the mindset of their constituents on the other.</br></br>In the major currencies, the dollar was able to extend its gains modestly against the yen, as investors remain wary of currency-market intervention after the seemingly heavy presence of the Bank of Japan, which acts on behalf of the government, last week. Japan has been a dominant force in currency markets this year as it seeks to stop the yen from hitting 115 yen, a level thought to be the pain threshold for many exporters. | yes | 1 |
Unions Take Kerry Message Door to Door; Candidate's Stance on Jobs Touted to Dwindling Number of Factory Workers in Pa. | The Erie Labor Temple is an old, proud building that stands in the middle of downtown State Street, its location, like its name, proof of a time when unions lorded over the city. People still talk about the days when 15,000 union members worked at the General Electric locomotive plant -- more workers than all of the plants combined currently employ in Erie County.</br></br>Saturday morning at the temple, AFL-CIO organizers set out doughnuts and coffee and held a meeting for workers willing to give up half a weekend to save union jobs. Their task would be to knock on members' doors to get the word out that this year's presidential election is crucial for jobs and health care, not to mention that the Democrat, Sen. John F. Kerry, is their friend. The hope was that 40 to 50 workers might show up.</br></br>Instead, 90 people crowded a meeting room with faded walls and warped floors. They included steelworkers and carpenters, construction workers and assembly line crews, and people whose jobs were outsourced. Everyone seemed excited, but serious, about being part of the earliest, biggest, on-the-ground get-out-the-vote operation the AFL-CIO has ever mounted -- with more than 100 walks in 72 cities in 16 states during the four Saturdays in June.</br></br>"We're hitting more than 400,000 union households in Pennsylvania in June because this November is that important to us," David Keicher, a national field representative for the AFL-CIO's Northeast region, told the workers. He had brought a few foot soldiers from his home base in Buffalo, 89 miles away, and promised more next Saturday.</br></br>With Pennsylvania on everyone's list of key battleground states (President Bush has visited here more than two dozen times -- more frequently than any other state besides his own Texas), the workers knew that Republican groups are mounting their own walks. And, yes, they had heard that every political group in the country seems to have decided to go back to campaigning door to door. | no | 0 |
Business and Finance | THE GROUP OF SEVEN reaffirmed its dollar-stabilization accord, but in such vague terms that the market may become more volatile as traders try to push the dollar higher. U.S. officials tried to damp such speculation, insisting the seven big industrial powers want to keep the dollar in the same trading range.</br></br>Argentina bypassed the IMF and announced an economic reform program aided by a $1.25 billion World Bank loan. The move comes amid a dispute between the U.S. and the IMF's managing director over how to handle the world debt problem.</br></br>---</br></br>Interest rates are expected to rise in the next few months because the economy is still growing vigorously, a Wall Street Journal survey of economists says. Several Fed members leaned toward tighter credit at the August policy meeting.</br></br>Durable goods orders surged 6% in August, mainly due to a rebound in the volatile transportation sector. Orders slid a revised 7.4% in July. | yes | 1 |
Invest and Earn | The answer, so far, is the federal thrift savings plan. The 17.07 percent rate is the average annual return for the C-fund (stock index) since it became available to investors in 1988. During the same period, the average return for the F-fund (bond index) was 8.28 percent. The super-safe (no market ups and downs!) G-fund, invested in Treasury securities, had a return of 7.55 percent.</br></br>Those numbers, compiled by Dennis M. Gurtz, a Bethesda- based financial planner, are important since feds are in the midst of their open-enrollment season for the savings plan. They have until the end of July to join the plan or redirect where their future payroll-deducted investments will go.</br></br>Past performance doesn't indicate what a stock, bond or Treasury fund will do in the future, but it clearly shows where it has been. And the C-fund, despite the ups and downs of the stock market, has been on a long-term roll riding the bull market.</br></br>In calendar 1996, the C-fund returned 22.85 percent. In 1995, its return was 37.41 percent. In 1994 (when many people bailed out), it returned only 1.33 percent. For the same three years, the F-fund returns were 3.66 percent, 18.31 percent and minus 2.9 percent. The G-fund track record was 6.76 percent in 1996, 7.03 percent in 1995 and 7.22 percent in 1994.</br></br>Gurtz said the year-to-date returns for the funds are 15.40 percent for the C-fund, 1.86 percent for the F-fund and 2.83 percent for the G-fund. The C-fund was up 6.07 percent for the month of May, and the June numbers -- so far -- look equally good. | no | 0 |
Job Figures Stayed Bleak in Latest Month; Fed Acts Again to Cut Rates, Aid Economy --- Interest on Federal Funds To Slip to 6%; Some See End to Policy of Easing | WASHINGTON -- The Federal Reserve eased credit another notch Friday, continuing its effort to revive the economy.</br></br>The move, which came shortly after the Labor Department announced a jump in the unemployment rate for February to 6.5%, will lower the interest rate on federal funds by a quarter of a point, to 6%. The federal funds rate is the rate on overnight loans between banks. It remains unclear what effect, if any, that move will have on mortgage rates or other bank lending rates.</br></br>In the credit markets, short-term interest rates fell slightly after the Fed's action, but interest rates on long-term bonds rose.</br></br>Chairman Alan Greenspan and other top Fed officials have said recently that the U.S.'s recession may be bottoming out, suggesting that the Fed's attempts to ease credit could end soon. However, Mr. Greenspan also has expressed concern that a "credit crunch" is still restricting bank lending and hurting the economy.</br></br>In the financial markets, many traders seem to share the view that the economy is looking up and that the Fed's campaign to ease credit is all but over. "The markets appear to perceive this as the Fed's last easing move," said Robert Johnson, vice president, global markets, at Bankers Trust New York Corp. | yes | 1 |
Bill Extending Emergency Jobless Aid Is Passed by Senate Finance Committee | WASHINGTON -- A Senate committee easily approved emergency aid for the jobless, amid signs of a Republican split over an issue that has suddenly become a top Democratic priority.</br></br>The Senate Finance Committee voted 16-4 for a measure, introduced just this week by Chairman Lloyd Bentsen (D., Texas), extending unemployment benefits to more jobless workers and for a longer period in many cases. Five of the panel's nine Republicans joined all 11 Democrats in voting for the bill. Senate GOP Leader Robert Dole of Kansas, who opposed it, nonetheless indicated that he was trying to get the Bush administration to soften its opposition and back some compromise.</br></br>Meanwhile, House leaders released details of a separate measure that, like the Senate bill, is on a fast track toward possible passage before Congress departs for its August recess. The House bill would leave it to the president to decide whether the bill for added benefits would be paid for by raising taxes on employers or by declaring the spending an emergency exempt from the ceilings in last fall's budget agreement. The Senate bill, to take effect, relies on the president to designate an emergency, which administration officials oppose.</br></br>Congressional Democrats' flurry of action comes about a year after the recession began, and when it is generally thought to be ending. That delay has embarrassed many Democrats, given the party's traditional fealty to labor. But key leaders feared that any relief measure would lack sufficient votes if it meant raising the employer payroll taxes that finance the unemployment compensation system. Defending the late response, Democrats note that joblessness typically persists even as recessions wane because recovering businesses don't rush to recall workers or hire new ones.</br></br>Currently, the jobless first get up to 26 weeks of state benefits. In states with high unemployment, they can receive an extension of up to 13 weeks more at a cost shared by state and federal governments. But many unemployed workers don't qualify for the extended benefits, given state restrictions on eligibility and high thresholds for the state unemployment rates that trigger extended aid. | no | 0 |
U.S. News: Incomes Fell or Stagnated in Most States Last Year | The income of the typical U.S. family fell or was flat in almost every state last year, with the drop particularly steep in places where the economy has been hit hard by the housing bust.</br></br>The median annual household income -- the point on the income scale at which half earn more and half earn less -- fell in 18 states in 2011 from a year earlier after adjusting for inflation, according to a Census Bureau report to be released Thursday.</br></br>The sharpest drop occurred in Nevada, where median income fell by 6%. The median fell by 3.8% in California and by 2.9% in Arizona and Florida. Those four states are among those that have seen the biggest falls in home values and housing construction since the financial crisis, and where Americans are still struggling with the resulting heavy debt and high unemployment.</br></br>Nationally, the median income dropped by 1.3% to $50,502 in 2011. A separate report last week reported a slightly different median income level, but either way, the number is at a level last seen in the mid-1990s, continuing a long period of stagnant or falling wages since an all-time peak in 1999.</br></br>Last week's report focused on the national picture of income and poverty, while Thursday's data provide detail on the health of the recovery at the state and local level. It shows that despite 2011's marking the second full year of the recovery, poverty continued to rise in many regions. An estimated 335,760 people fell into poverty in California alone last year, pushing up the state's poverty rate to 16.6%. Poverty is defined as an annual income of $23,021 or lower for a family of four. | no | 0 |
Labor Market More Worrisome, Fed Officials Indicate | Continued strains in the labor market are weighing on Federal Reserve officials more than recent turmoil in Europe, their public comments Thursday suggested.</br></br>Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta President Dennis Lockhart indicated that the central bank may raise interest rates even if joblessness remains high. "[G]ood policy, even in circumstances of unacceptable levels of unemployment, may incorporate higher interest rates."</br></br>Mr. Lockhart, whose views tend to mirror the consensus on the Fed's policy committee, said "the time is approaching when it will be appropriate" for the Fed to consider raising rates, but that time hasn't arrived yet. "However, as the economy continues to improve and financial markets find firmer ground, extraordinarily low policy rates will not be needed...will become inconsistent with maintaining price stability."</br></br>He acknowledged that the European concerns "have added to uncertainty" in financial markets. But neither he nor other Fed officials who spoke Thursday suggested Europe is a predominant concern. Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City President Thomas Hoenig said the situation in Europe "reminds us to be wary," and noted the shift from riskier assets "will have a modest negative net effect on U.S. economic growth in the near term."</br></br>But the officials' comments suggested that the path for interest rates hadn't been altered much by recent developments overseas. | yes | 1 |
Two Area Firms Spotlight REIT Problems: Two Firms Show REIT Problems | The ravages ot inflation on some real estate invesi-ment trusts was demon* strated sharply yesterday with reports by two area tirms, showing significant increases in potential loan losses:</br></br>The ravages ot inflation on some real estate invesi-ment trusts was demon* strated sharply yesterday with reports by two area tirms, showing significant increases in potential loan losses: Û¢ First Virginia Mortgage and Real Estate Investment Trust of Falls Church, whose advisory firm is a subsidiary of First Virginia Bnnkshares Corp., revealed that about 21 per cent of all its loans are not accruing interest or are in foreclosure.</br></br>Û¢ Commonwealth National Realty Trust of Rockville, established and advised by a subsidiary of Maryland National Corp., posted a loss of $1.78 million for the nine months ended Aug. 31, and increased its provision for potential loan losses to about $1.5 million from $990,000.</br></br>holding company which controls tlie largest bank in Northern Virginia, and by Marynat. which owns Maryland National Bank, largest in the Free State.</br></br>Ever since, record costs of borrowing money and a lack of permanent mortage funds have caused a growing number of defaults on building projects by developers, who canÛªt pay off loans on timeÛÓ aml'many of the loans came from the real estate investment trust industry. | no | 0 |
Insiders at BE Aerospace Buy Shares, Leading to Turnaround Speculation | Fasten your seat belts. BE Aerospace Inc. could be preparing for takeoff again.</br></br>The executives who are piloting the manufacturer of aircraft-cabin equipment started buying shares of company stock in February. This is the first significant round of activity since the summer of 1997, when BE Aerospace executives sold shares and reduced their stake in the company.</br></br>"There hasn't been much activity over the past year and a half, and because they were such heavy sellers in 1997, I find the buys very interesting," said Nancy Fedorowicz, an analyst at First Call Investnet, a Rockville, Md., concern that tracks insider transactions.</br></br>The insiders have rekindled their interest in the stock just when shares were closing in on a 52-week low. From Feb. 10 to Feb. 19, six BE Aerospace insiders purchased 46,000 shares at $12.69 to $14.94, according to First Call Investnet. Yesterday, BE Aerospace shares closed at $14, down 43.75 cents, on the Nasdaq Stock Market.</br></br>The latest round of purchases included top company officials, adding more credibility to the buys, some analysts said. "The executives have been with the company for a while, they have a good track record and the cluster of activity represents fairly large dollar amounts," said Jonathan Moreland, director of research at InsiderTrader.com, a Web-based distributor of insider data. "Just about every rule to get you interested in insider trading at a company is being ticked off." | no | 0 |
A Becalming Hand On Feverish Stocks: A Constant Hedge Could Be a Hero Reality Transcended | EVERY so of'en, I feel it my duty to lay a becalming hand bn the stock market ÛÓ like 'he family doctor who says to the head of 'he household, ÛÏAt your stage in life, take it easv: whv bring on a heart attack!"</br></br>EVERY so of'en, I feel it my duty to lay a becalming hand bn the stock market ÛÓ like 'he family doctor who says to the head of 'he household, ÛÏAt your stage in life, take it easv: whv bring on a heart attack!" are too high or too low, but 1 do know that we've had a long postwar bull market. Dow theorists are, exuberant. The) rails have just confirmed the advance in the, industrials.</br></br>Of 23 issues I reviewed, only one was downÛÓEastern Bowling. All the rest rose within 6 to 20 days, some to more than 200%.</br></br>Advances of 50% to 75% (Guild Musical Instruments, Milo Electronics, MotherÛªs Cookie Co.) and of more than 100% (Telescript-CSP, Stancil-Hoffman, Management Assistance, Boonton Electronics, General Supermarkets, Berkey Photo) were common.</br></br>The head of the investment policy committee of a major trust company insisted to me the other day: ÛÏOf course, weÛªre cautious. WeÛªre buying less and less common stock every day.Û ÛÏBy why, if you donÛªt trust the market, if you think stocks are high, put such a large proportion into commons?Û | no | 0 |
SEC Chairman Supports New Market Legislation: Ruder Says He Has 'Put... | The chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission said yesterday that he has ÛÏput some distance" between himself and other members of the White House stock market task force headed by Treasury Undersecretary George Gould.</br></br>' :-David Ruder made the remarks in an interview after a hearing before the House telecommunications and finance subcommittee, where the Republican SEC chairman at times found himself allied with House Democrats who were attacking the Reagan administration.</br></br>ÐÊAt the hearing, subcommittee chairman Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) praised Ruder for supporting new market legislation-drafted in response to the Oct. 19 stock collapseÛÓbut criticized other members of the task force, including Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and Wendy Lee Gramm, chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.</br></br>harshly than has your boss, President Reagan," Markey said. ÛÏFor you have missed an historic opportunity to erect a dynamic, coherent and unified regulatory structure."</br></br>In a brief appearance near the hearingÛªs conclusion, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.) warned of the possibility of another stock market collapse. He instructed the regulators not ÛÏtd come by my office" when the public goes after government officials ÛÏwho sat idly by" instead of acting to restore investor confidence. | no | 0 |
Our Economy Needs a Golden Anchor | How many more dashed hopes and false recoveries must we experience before politicians and monetary authorities accept the fact that our inability to manage fiat currencies is causing the global economic slowdown? They keep waiting for interest-rate reductions to kick in, yet more than six months after the Fed began lowering rates the economy continues to weaken. Waiting for the recently enacted tax cuts to provide "stimulus" will prove futile as well. The economy does not suffer a lack of consumer demand, and more money in people's pockets will not revive the supply side of the economy.</br></br>Ronald Reagan once said he knew of no great nation in history that went off the gold standard and remained great. Since Aug. 15, 1971, when the U.S. ceased to redeem dollars held by foreign governments for gold, we have put that thesis to the test. For the first time in human history, not a single major currency in the world was linked to a commodity. Economist Milton Friedman called the situation "unprecedented" and said it is "not a long-term viable alternative." "The world," he said, "needs a long-term anchor of some kind."</br></br>In the short term, at least, he was vindicated. In creating a world monetary system of floating fiat currencies with the stroke of a pen, President Nixon touched off world-wide inflation that lasted through the '70s and early '80s.</br></br>Yet America recovered to preside over the demise of world communism, and overcame the rising inflation and unemployment of "stagflation" to enjoy an unparalleled 18-year economic expansion. Today, the U.S. is at the pinnacle of its power and enjoying its greatest prosperity ever.</br></br>Were Messrs. Reagan and Friedman wrong? I don't think so. If the U.S. has so far come out on top in this experiment, it is only because other countries' economies have suffered even more from floating currencies. | no | 0 |
Rush to Buy Bonds Sends Rates Down: Clinton Plan, Fall in Consumer Confidence Also Hurt Stocks, ] | Panic buying hit the bond market yesterday as investors, apparently convinced that interest rates are down to stay, scrambled to purchase bonds before yields fell any further.</br></br>In the process, rates on intermediate- and long-term U.S. Treasury securities were driven down one-tenth to two-tenths of a percentage point in a single day.</br></br>Levy, chief economist at CRT Government Securities Ltd. in New York. ÛÏThe whole fixed-income market has appreciated dramatically."</br></br>Levy said most financial market participants seem convinced that inflation will stay low and, perversely, that President Clinton's deficit reduction proposals will dampen rather than spur economic growth.</br></br>"Actually, the package does nothing to harm the economy in the short run,Û Levy said. Û÷It is clear sailing for economic growth." | no | 0 |
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