Thursday, Aug. 26, 1999

Markets

MarketXT

, formerly Eclipse Trading, offers after-hours trading to retail clients of

Morgan Stanley Dean Witter's

(MWD)

Discover Brokerage

and

Mellon Bank's

(MEL)

Dreyfus Brokerage Services

. Clients can trade 200 of the most actively traded

New York Stock Exchange

and

Nasdaq Stock Market

issues, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. EDT Monday through Thursday.

TheStreet.com

updates MarketXT's 10 most active issues in Got a Minute? and in the Evening Update.

TSC

also reports how MarketXT's three most active Nasdaq-listed issues finished the

Island ECN

session, which ends at 5:15 p.m. EDT.

MarketXT Most-Actives

(

MarketXT quotes as of 8 p.m. EDT; change vs. New York close

.)

1. Sun Microsystems

(SUNW) - Get Report

, down 5/16 to 74 7/8 on 3,650 shares. Last trade on Island: 75 1/4 at 5 p.m.

2. Conexant Systems

(CNXT) - Get Report

, up 1/16 to 73 on 2,000 shares. Last trade on Island: 72 15/16 at 3:59 p.m.

3. America Online

(AOL)

, down 7/16 to 100 on 1,850 shares.

4. Autodesk

(ADSK) - Get Report

, down 2 1/16, or 8.3%, to 22 3/4 on 1,800 shares. Last trade on Island: 23 3/4 at 5:01 p.m.

5. Oracle

(ORCL) - Get Report

, down 1/8 to 37 on 1,100 shares.

6. Amgen

(AMGN) - Get Report

, up 7/16 to 80 9/16 on 1,000 shares.

7. Linear Technology

(LLTC)

, up 1/4 to 63 7/16 on 1,000 shares.

8. Chiron

(CHIR) - Get Report

, up 9/16 to 32 3/16 on 500 shares.

9. Microsoft

(MSFT) - Get Report

, down 1/16 to 94 5/16 on 500 shares.

10. Cisco

(CSCO) - Get Report

, up 1/16 to 69 on 400 shares.

Check out

TheStreet.com's

updated

Night-Owl's Guide to After-Hours Trading for more information on postclose trading.

--

John J. Edwards III

Day Session Report

The weak market only got worse as the day wore on. Selling picked up heading into late trading and none of the major indices survived the downturn this time. The

Dow Jones Industrial Average

dropped 127.59 points to 11,198.45 after boasting a record close yesterday, while the

Nasdaq Composite Index

lost 30.97 to end at 2774.63.

The big European indices closed mixed, with France's

CAC

flat and Germany's

Xetra Dax

down 0.2%, while London's

FTSE

closed up 0.23%.

Asian markets went both ways overnight as Hong Kong's

Hang Seng

rose 129.25, or 1%, to 13,608, and Tokyo's

Nikkei

dropped 188.87, or 1.1%, to 17,666.

More markets news and commentary are available in

TSC's

Markets section.

Companies

Amcast

(AIZ) - Get Report

said its fourth-quarter results would fall "significantly below" analyst estimates due to manufacturing problems. The three-analyst estimate called for earnings of 50 cents a share, as compared with 10 cents a share a year ago.

American Home Products

(AHP)

agreed to settle lawsuits with more than 36,000 women over its

Norplant

contraceptive device, but did not specify the amount it will pay to plaintiffs. Many of the women who used Norplant, which is implanted under the skin and releases continuous hormone doses, complained of heavy menstrual bleeding, severe headaches, nausea and depression.

Champion Enterprises

(CHB)

said it expects lower earnings for the second half of 1999 due to excess retail inventory and a competitive market for manufactured homes.

Concord EFS

(CEFT)

set a 3-for-2 stock split for shareholders of record on Sept. 15. The company said extra shares will be distributed on Sept. 22.

Deere & Co

(DE) - Get Report

said it would form a joint venture with Turkey's

Hattat Group

to produce tractors and distribute Deere equipment in Turkey.

The

Florida Supreme Court

upheld a $31 million verdict against

Owens Corning

(OWC)

in an asbestos-related death, saying that the company showed a blatant disregard for human safety. Deward Ballard, who died several months ago, had said his rare version of lung cancer resulted from an exposure to

Kaylo

, an asbestos-contaminated insulation sold by Owens. The court said Owens made a purely economic decision not to tell customers about the risk of cancer from exposure to the product.

General American Life Insurance

, a unit of

GenAmerica

, agreed to a $1.2 billion buyout offer from

Metropolitan Life Insurance

which would provide the ability to repay policyholders demanding the return of $6.8 billion in deposits.

Knight/Trimark

(NITE)

, Nasdaq's largest market maker, is pulling the plug on

Paine Webber

(PWJ)

. Knight said it will transfer its stock clearing business to

Merrill Lynch

(MER)

in mid-October noting the advantages of Merrill's large overseas and options markets. The Street.com broke the news in a story on

Tuesday.

Louisiana-Pacific

(LPX) - Get Report

said it will close its lumber sawmill in Alaska in October due to a deal last week to sell operating assets to

Gateway Forest Products

. The mill employs roughly 60 people.

Nike

(NKE) - Get Report

said it expects capital expenditures to rise by $200 million in the current fiscal year to $584 million from $384 million last year. The company said the increase was mostly due to the recent purchase of a Japanese distribution facility.

Proctor &Gamble

(PG) - Get Report

said it would buy

Recovery Engineering

(REIN)

a maker of household drinking-water systems and filters for $265 million in cash. The acquisition will give P&G a foothold in the growing market for water treatment.

Rite Aid

(RAD) - Get Report

said it was in ongoing talks for potential corporate transactions that could be "material" if completed.

US Office Products

(OFIS)

said Warren Feldberg, a former Caldor executive, will take the posts of president and CEO.

WestAmerica Bancorp

(WABC) - Get Report

said it would buy back 2.8 million shares or 7.2% of the company's outstanding stock. In the past year, parent company

Westamerica

has repurchased 2.9 million shares.

World Fuel Services

(INT) - Get Report

said it is suing a Nigerian company that allegedly diverted its oil shipments during its changeover to democracy in May. The Florida-based company is taking a $3.3 million charge as a result.

More news on companies and stocks is available in

TSC's

Stock News section.

Tech

Cisco Systems

(CSCO) - Get Report

agreed to buy two closely held companies for $7.6 billion in stock to add networking products that fill gaps in its own product line.

Cerent

, based in Petaluma, Calif., makes equipment for routing phone calls and Internet traffic through fiber-optic lines, while Texas-based

Monterey Networks'

products include technology that expands the capacity of long-distance services.

Gap

(GPS) - Get Report

and

America Online

(AOL)

formed a three-year agreement that will showcase the retailer's

Gap

,

Banana Republic

and

Old Navy

clothing brands on AOL's shopping site.

Lucent Technologies

(LU)

won a $300 million contract to build a telephone network in Mexico for San Diego-based

Presto Telecommunications

.

MCI WorldCom

(WCOM)

received eight-year contracts for voice, data, videoconferencing and Internet services worth about $160 million, from the

Department of Health and Human Services

and the

Department of Education

.

Vodafone AirTouch's

(VOD) - Get Report

CEO Chris Gent is reportedly in talks with

Bell Atlantic

(BEL)

about creating a joint venture in the U.S.,

The Times

of London reported. Analysts believe the deal could involve a merger of AirTouch's West Coast operations and Bell Atlantic's mobile phone unit, which covers the East Coast.

More tech news and commentary are available in

TSC's

Tech Stocks section.

General News

The U.S. economy grew at a substantially slower annual rate of 1.8% in the second quarter, reflecting a drag from the bloated trade deficit. The

Commerce Department

reported that the increase in the

gross domestic product

from April through June was slower than the 2.3% estimated one month ago. The slowdown in the second quarter followed a brisk 4.3% annual growth rate in the first quarter.

Initial jobless claims decreased 5,000 to a seasonally adjusted 283,000 for the week ended Aug. 21, the

Labor Department

reported. It was the fifth straight week of claims below 300,000. The less volatile four-week average of claims rose to 283,750 last week from 281,500 in the previous week. Even with the rise, the average remains close to the 26-year low.

Attorney General

Janet Reno

vowed to get to the bottom of the 1993 Waco, Texas, siege amid

FBI

admissions that agents may have fired potentially flammable tear gas canisters into the compound that day.

Jonathan Schmitz, the man accused of killing Scott Amedure following a secret-admirer revelation on the

Jenny Jones

show, was convicted of second-degree murder for the second time. Schmitz could be sentenced to life in prison for the March 1995 death. An earlier verdict was thrown out due to errors in jury selection.

International

ABN Amro

offered $1.3 billion for

Bouwfounds Nederlandse Gemeenten

to raise its share of the Dutch home mortgage market.

British Telecommunications

(BTY)

bought

Yellow Book USA

for $665 million as part of an effort to build its online directory service. BT said the company will become part of its own Yellow Pages business, which will result in combined sales of $1 billion.

Japan's Financial Supervisory Agency is probing

Deutsche Bank's

units in the country's latest indication that it is serious about financial services reform. Yesterday, investigators began inspecting all seven of Deutsche's Tokyo businesses, including units it obtained in its $9 billion acquisition of

Bankers Trust

earlier this year.

Ecuador said it will defer $96 million in interest payments this month and restructure nearly $6 billion in Brady bonds, becoming the first country ever to default on the debt, which is partly backed by U.S. Treasury bonds. The

International Monetary Fund

said it backed Ecuador's efforts to reschedule its foreign debt.

Sulzer

, a Swiss textile company, said it would fire 10% of its workforce and sell some units after a drop in earnings. Sulzer said it will cut nearly 2,000 jobs, half of which are in Switzerland, with an expected $65 million in savings as a result.

More international news and commentary are available in

TSC's

International section.

Elsewhere

Defense lawyers for Chicago man Samuel Robles had no idea their client was on such a tight schedule. The convicted drug dealer sat for three hours in a Rock County, Wis., courtroom awaiting a possible 10-year sentence before he got up, strolled out and never came back. Apparently, people believed he was headed for the bathroom, though one court official thought it was odd that Robles paused to shake hands and kiss some of the family members who filled two rows of the courtroom. "I can't believe he sat for three hours and then left. Why didn't he leave sooner if he wasn't going to stay for the sentencing?" asked Rock County Assistant District Attorney Gerald Urbik, who was quoted in the

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

.