Wednesday, August 11, 1999

Markets

For the first time in a long time, stocks rallied broadly and held their gains.

All the proxies finished in the black. The

Dow Jones Industrial Average

added 132.65 to 10,787.80; the Nasdaq Composite Index surged 74.83 to 2564.94; the

S&P 500

advanced 20.50 to 1301.93; the small-cap

Russell 2000

snapped back 5.37 to 428.19; and

TheStreet.com Internet Sector

index gained 13.96 to 502.36. Breadth was decidedly positive.

The 30-year Treasury bond picked up 14/32 to an even 87, its yield falling to 6.218%.

The big European indices finished solidly higher.

Asian markets went both ways overnight, as Hong Kong's

Hang Seng

shed 158.91, or 1.3%, to 12,437.80, while and Tokyo's

Nikkei

inched forward 9.07 to 17,211.16 in trading thinned by the

obon

holidays.

More markets news and commentary are available in

TSC's

Markets section.

Companies

Hot on the heels of the news that Canadian aluminum giant

Alcan

(AL) - Get Report

is buying France's

Pechiney

(PY) - Get Report

and Switzerland's

algroup

,

Dow

component

Alcoa

(AA) - Get Report

made an unsolicited $4.2 billion offer to buy

Reynolds Metals

(RLM) - Get Report

. Alcoa is offering $65 a share for half of Reynolds' outstanding shares and 0.9784 Alcoa share for each of the remaining half.

Bank One

(ONE) - Get Report

is expanding its

Technology One Alliance

with

AT&T

(T) - Get Report

and

IBM

(IBM) - Get Report

-- under which those companies provide Bank One with networking and computing support services -- to include locations of the former

First Chicago NBD

, which Bank One bought last year. Bank One said the new contracts with AT&T and IBM are worth $465 million and $168 million, respectively.

Blockbuster

(BBI) - Get Report

wasn't moving or shaking in its rather strange trading debut today. The stock closed right where

Salomon Smith Barney

priced it yesterday -- at 15, the bottom end of the 1/16 point-wide trading range it spent the entire day in.

Boeing

(BA) - Get Report

is selling Taiwanese carrier

China Airlines

13 cargo planes and five passenger jets for about $3.8 billion. China Airlines is also buying seven passenger jets from

Airbus

.

Nortel Networks

(NT)

said that

U S West

(USW)

-- which

Qwest Communications

(QWST)

is buying -- has chosen Nortel to help the regional Bell improve its network capacity by providing it high-speed data and telephony services.

General American Life Insurance

unit

Reinsurance Group of America

(RGA) - Get Report

said it was temporarily unable to come up with the cash to meet some investors' withdrawals from the company's "short-term funding agreements."

Goldman Sachs

cut the stock to market perform from the recommended list.

Procter & Gamble

(PG) - Get Report

set plans to buy privately held pet-food maker

Iams

for $2.05 billion in cash.

More news on companies and stocks is available in

TSC's

Stock News section.

Tech

Cisco

(CSCO) - Get Report

yesterday posted fourth-quarter earnings of 21 cents a share, excluding extraordinary items. That's a penny above the 30-analyst estimate and up from the year-ago 16 cents.

Telecommunications components maker

Oak Industries

(OAK) - Get Report

warned that its third-quarter earnings won't meet analysts' estimates; the company said it expects to earn 40 to 42 cents a share, far below the four-analyst consensus of 51 cents a share. Trading in the stock was a bit rocky today; it was halted this morning, resumed, was halted again while the company disseminated its warning, and resumed again, finally closing down 13 1/4, or 32.3%, to 27 3/4.

Sun Microsystems

(SUNW) - Get Report

signed a long-term deal with data storage maker

Storage Technology

(STK) - Get Report

allowing the companies to resell each other's storage systems. The deal's terms weren't disclosed.

Red Hat

(RHAT)

gained 38 1/16, or 271.8%, to 52 1/16 in its first day of trading.

Goldman Sachs

, the lead underwriter for the 6 million-share IPO, priced the stock top-range last night at $14, having raised the pricing range to $12 to $14 a share from $10 to $12 a share.

More tech news and commentary are available in

TSC's

Tech Stocks section.

General News

Pakistan opened fire on three Indian helicopters that were transporting journalists to the crash site of a Pakistani surveillance plane shot down by Indian war planes yesterday. The helicopters returned to their base undamaged.

Buford Oneal Furrow, the 37-year-old man suspected of firing more than 70 shots in a Jewish community center yesterday in Los Angeles, has turned himself in to authorities. Furrow's attack wounded three children, a counselor and a receptionist. One of the children is in critical condition.

International

As noted above, Alcan set plans to buy Pechiney and algroup for about $9.2 billion in stock. Alcan will exchange 1.78 of its shares for each Pechiney share and 20.6 shares for each algroup share. The resulting company,

APA

, will be the world's largest aluminum manufacturer, and will have headquarters in Montreal and regional headquarters in Europe.

Daewoo's

domestic creditors said they'll force the South Korean

chaebol

to sell all but six of its 25 main units in an effort to recover $57 billion of debt.

More international news and commentary are available in

TSC's

International section.

Elsewhere

Derrick Coleman's

agent, Harold McDonald, is claiming the charges that the

NBA

player publicly urinated in a Detroit restaurant are "totally untrue." Coleman's reputation as one of the league's laziest superstars notwithstanding, McDonald defended his client by saying: "It doesn't make any sense. I've been to the Intermezzo and the bathroom is 10 steps away from where he was sitting. He wouldn't do that."