Friday, May 28, 1999
Markets
Put on your white shoes and your seersucker suit and relax. These are the days before extended trading hours, and stocks are up, for now.
All the major proxies finished solidly in the black, albeit on very lame volume. The
Dow Jones Industrial Average
gained 92.81 to 10,559.74; the
S&P 500
added 20.44 to 1301.85; the
Nasdaq Composite Index
grew 51.26 to 2470.41; the small-cap
Russell 2000
rose 5.76 to 438.68; and
TheStreet.com Internet Sector
index advanced 21.26 to 580.64.
The big European indices finished mixed, with London's
FTSE
closing a bit over break-even, while France's
CAC
and Frankfurt's
Dax
settling a tad below. The Dax saw heavy dealing in
Deutsche Telekom
(DT) - Get Report
on news that state holdings in the company will be listed in June, a change that will cause Deutsche's Dax weighting to balloon from 5% to 13%.
Asian markets were weak overnight. Hong Kong's
Hang Seng
dropped 249.28, or 2%, to 12,059.25, and Tokyo's
Nikkei
fell 204.51, or 1.3%, to 15,972.68.
More markets action and news is available in
TSC's
Markets section.
Companies
Jockeying with
Lockheed Martin
(LMT) - Get Report
for a $2.5 billion jet order,
Boeing
(BA) - Get Report
sweetened its bid to produce its F-15 fighter planes for Israel by offering an extra $500 million in incentives for Israeli businesses.
Immunex
(IMNX)
said the
Food and Drug Administration
has approved
Enbrel
for treatment of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis.
General Motors
(GM) - Get Report
today is spinning off the remaining 80.1% of its stake in
Delphi Automotive Systems
(DPH)
as a special dividend to GM stockholders.
Standard & Poor's
said last night that
PaineWebber
(PWJ)
will replace
Bankers Trust
(BT)
in the S&P 500 after the closing bell on June 4. Bankers Trust is being acquired by
Deutsche Bank
.
United Rentals
(URI) - Get Report
said
Rental Service
(RSV)
shareholders have tendered about 15% of their stock in response to its hostile offer, which United Rentals said it will extend to June 18.
More news on companies and stocks is available in
TSC's
Stock News section.
Tech
Epartners
, a recently formed investment vehicle of Rupert Murdoch's
News Corp.
(NWS) - Get Report
, has made its first investment, a minority stake in high-tech investment bank
W.R. Hambrecht
.
The $6.7 billion acquisition of Web portal
Excite
(XCIT)
by high-speed Internet access provider
@Home
(ATHM) - Get Report
has been approved by shareholders of both companies.
Microsoft
(MSFT) - Get Report
bought a 4.25% stake in wireless phone company
Nextel Communications
(NXTL)
for $600 million.
More tech news and commentary is available in
TSC's
Tech Stocks section.
General News
Oil exporting countries are in 90% compliance with the export reduction pact reached in The Hague back in March, according to Mexican Energy Minister
Luis Tellez
.
The
Commerce Department
released figures showing personal income increasing 0.5% for April, 0.1 percentage point higher than expectations and last month's rate. Personal consumption rose 0.4% this past month, matching economists' forecasts and the March clip.
Russian envoy
Viktor Chernomyrdin
travels to Belgrade to talk peace with Yugoslav
Slobodan Milosevic
. The prospects don't look good in the short term:
NATO
is showing no signs of slowing its air strikes, having flown about 310 attack sorties yesterday and today.
International
China National Petroleum
said it plans to raise up to $10 billion in two years by selling shares in the U.S., U.K., Hong Kong and China. The company said it would first have to restructure its diverse operations.
French oil company
Elf Aquitaine
(ELF) - Get Report
offered $4.45 billion in cash and assumed debt for Norway's
Saga Petroleum
(SPM)
, besting an all-stock bid from
Norsk Hydro
(NHY)
at Saga's request. Elf will proceed without the interest of
Statoil
, Norway's state-owned oil company, which yesterday agreed to give its 20% stake in Saga to Norsk Hydro in return for Saga oil assets.
More international news and commentary is available in
TSC's
International section.
Elsewhere
The executor of the estate of the late comic actor
Phil Hartman
has filed a lawsuit against pharmaceutical company
Pfizer
(PFE) - Get Report
, charging that side effects from its antidepressant
Zoloft
caused Hartman's wife to shoot him and then herself. No suit has yet been filed against the manufacturers of the cocaine and booze on which Mrs. Hartman was stoned the night of the murder-suicide.
Have a dumb question relating to finance? Great. Have a
really
dumb question? Even better. Send it to
MonEmailbag@thestreet.com, and I'll do my best to answer every
Saturday. Include your full name, and please, no questions seeking personal financial advice or regarding personal brokerage disputes. And this reminder: Because of the volume of mail, personal replies can't be guaranteed.
