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.

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really

dumb question? Even better. Send it to

MonEmailbag@thestreet.com, and I'll do my best to answer every

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