Friday, August 6, 1999
Markets
No one's going to miss this week very much.
The stock market capped off a generally unpleasant week of losses today with more of the same. Stocks fell early amid some more market-unfriendly data from the
Labor Department
, and a midsession rally couldn't hold against the general sense in the market that interest rates will be going higher soon, and that the recent selloff hasn't run its course yet.
Read 'em and weep. The
Nasdaq Composite Index
dumped 17.64 to 2548.19, the
shed 13.38 to 1300.33, and the
Dow Jones Industrial Average
lost 79.79 to 10,714.03. The small-cap
Russell 2000
fell 1.71 to 428.04, and
TheStreet.com Internet Sector
index backed up 15.16 to 498.39.
The big European indices finished mixed, with France's
CAC
lower and Germany's
Xetra Dax
and London's
FTSE
ending on the plus side.
Asian markets plunged overnight, as Hong Kong's
Hang Seng
lost 87.28 to 13,167.06, and Tokyo's
Nikkei
shed 273.95, or 1.6%, to 17,084.24.
More markets news and commentary are available in
TSC's
Markets section.
Companies
A jury ruled that
American Home Products
(AHP)
must pay a Texas woman $3.3 million in compensatory damages and an additional $20 million in punitive damages for heart problems she suffered after using the diet drug phen-fen. More than 3,000 similar lawsuits have been filed against American Home Products, which made and marketed
fenfluramine
, one of the two drugs in the
fen-phen
cocktail.
Boston Scientific
(BSX) - Get Free Report
is recalling its Rotablator RotaLink Advancer and RotaLink Plus rotational atherectomy systems, which open constricted blood vessels by drilling away plaque from the vessel walls.
Chevron
(CHV)
said it will sign a deal with
Royal Dutch/Shell
undefined
to build a pipeline to deliver Nigerian gas to West African countries suffering power shortages. In addition to Nigeria, these countries include Benin, Togo and Ghana.
General Motors
(GM) - Get Free Report
said it will resume its stalled talks with
Daewoo Motor
about a possible alliance -- including, perhaps, GM's taking a controlling equity stake in the troubled South Korean automaker. The two companies started talking in February of last year.
Publishing giant
Hearst
sat it will buy the
San Francisco Chronicle
. Hearst already owns the
San Francisco Examiner
.
Placer Dome
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set plans to cut as much as 40% of the workforce of its South African joint venture. That could affect the jobs of up to 2,900 workers at the Western Areas gold mine near Johannesburg.
More news on companies and stocks are available in
TSC's
Stock News section.
Tech
America Online
(AOL)
signed distribution and co-branding agreements for its instant messaging software with Internet service providers
EarthLink
(ELNK)
and
MindSpring
undefined
.
eBay
(EBAY) - Get Free Report
got hammered amid its latest Web site outage. The stock lost 9 3/4, or 10.5%, to 83 1/4.
Internet Gold
(IGLD) - Get Free Report
lost 1/8, or 1%, to 11 15/16 in its first day of trading, having been priced last night at $12 a share by lead underwriter
Lehman Brothers
.
Goldman Sachs
raised
Yahoo!
(YHOO)
to its recommended list from market outperform. The upgrade comes at a time when Yahoo! is trading at about a 45% discount to its annual intraday high of 244, set back on April 6.
More tech news and commentary are available in
TSC's
Tech Stocks section.
General News
The Labor Department released figures showing nonfarm payrolls up 310,000 for July, much higher than the 194,400 expected by economists and up from last month's revised increase of 273,000 jobs. As forecast, the unemployment rate remained steady at 4.3%. But average hourly earnings increased 0.5%, 0.2 percentage points above expectations and higher than the 0.4% clip from last month.
International
Deutsche Telekom
(DT) - Get Free Report
set plans to buy U.K. mobile telephone firm
One2One
from
Cable & Wireless
(CWP)
and
MediaOne
undefined
for about $11.2 billion. Telekom will also assume about $2.4 billion in One 2 One debt.
Nokia
(NOK) - Get Free Report
said it was in talks to sell its
Salcomp
unit, which makes mobile phone battery chargers, as part of its plan to focus on core telecommunications and Internet technologies.
Truckmaker
Volvo
(VOLVY)
made a bid to acquire the 78.4% it doesn't already own of Swedish rival
Scania
undefined
, valuing the company at about $7.4 billion.
Investor
, Scania's controlling shareholder, has agreed to sell its stake.
More international news and commentary are available in
TSC's
International section.
Elsewhere
Actor
Robert Downey Jr.
was sentenced to three years in prison yesterday for violating probation on a conviction on drugs and weapons charges. Municipal Judge Lawrence Mira rejected Downey's plea for another stint in drug rehabilitation, saying the troubled actor had manipulated doctors and psychiatrists during his seven previous rehab programs. Downey's case may not have helped by his blunt characterization of the matter: "It's like I've got a shotgun in my mouth, with my finger on the trigger, and I like the taste of the gun metal," he told the judge.
