Wednesday, May 12, 1999
Markets
As
President Clinton
bid farewell to
Treasury
Secretary
Robert "Bob" Rubin
and welcomed new nominee
Lawrence Summers
, stocks wrapped up a rocky session with the
Dow Jones Industrial Average
modestly in the red and other major measures solidly higher.
The Dow lost 25.78 to 11,000.37, finishing way off its morning low of 10,812.81. That nadir came as word hit trading floors that Rubin, the popular ex-
Goldman Sachs
(GS) - Get Report
hand who's led Treasury through most of the
Clinton
administration, would finally announce his long-rumored departure.
The recovery from the lows was far more pronounced away from the Dow, which was heavily pressured by
United Technologies
,
Chevron
(CHV)
and
DuPont
(DD) - Get Report
. The
S&P 500
rose 8.31 to 1363.92, the
Nasdaq Composite Index
gained 39.32 to 2606.00, the
Russell 2000
tacked on 2.45 to 449.26 and
TheStreet.com Internet Sector
index advanced 2.82 to 656.91.
The bellwether 30-year Treasury bond rose 2/32 to 91 27/32, its yield at 5.83%.
Major European indices were mixed, with London's
FTSE 100
and Frankfurt's
Dax
closing fractionally lower while the Paris
CAC
finished just above break-even. In Asia, Hong Kong's
Hang Seng
climbed 138.6, or 1.1%, to 13,012.97, while Tokyo's
Nikkei
added 204.18, or 1.2%, to 16,947.36.
For more markets action and news, click
here.
Companies
Avondale Industries'
(AVDL) - Get Report
board last night agreed to start talking with
Litton Industries
(LIT) - Get Report
about its recent takeover offer, citing its possible superiority to the merger deal Avondale has already signed with
Newport News Shipbuilding
(NNS)
. Litton offered $1.76 billion for both Avondale and Newport News, with $504 million in cash earmarked for Avondale specifically.
Cox Communications
(COX)
agreed to buy Tyler, Texas-based
TCA Cable TV
(TCAT)
for about $4 billion in stock and cash. The deal will give Cox 883,000 additional cable customers and, along with its pending acquisition of
Media General's
(MEGA)
cable TV operations, make it the fourth-largest U.S. cable provider.
Consolidated Natural Gas
(CNG)
has accepted
Dominion Resources'
(D) - Get Report
takeover offer of $9 billion in stock, cash and assumed debt despite a higher offer from
Columbia Energy
(CG) - Get Report
. Consolidated said it took the lesser bid because of anticipated regulatory snags in the Columbia deal. Dominion is guaranteeing $66.60 in stock and cash for each Consolidated share.
Goldman Sachs went back to the securities market today, issuing $1.8 billion in high-grade debt. The deal, underwritten by Goldman itself, was upped from an initially planned $1.0 billion.
Cable company
Insight Communications
filed for an IPO, seeking to raise more than $500 million.
Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette
is the lead underwriter.
Microsoft
(MSFT) - Get Report
is in talks to buy 30% of
Cable & Wireless Communications
(CWZ)
, according to
The Wall Street Journal
, which cited people familiar with the negotiations. Mister Softee already owns stakes in the U.K.'s two other major cable providers,
Telewest
(TWSTY)
and New York-based
NTL
(NTLI)
, and is speculated to favor their consolidation with Cable & Wireless.
For more news on companies and stocks, click
here.
Tech
Cisco
(CSCO) - Get Report
last night posted third-quarter earnings of 38 cents a share, 1 cent above the 29-analyst
First Call
consensus and up from the year-ago 30 cents. Cisco also announced a 2-for-1 stock split, its eighth split in nine years.
Lycos
(LCOS)
,
USA Networks
(USAI) - Get Report
and
Ticketmaster Online-CitySearch
(TMCS)
have officially called off their merger.
For more tech news and commentary, click
here.
General News
Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin is resigning, President Clinton officially announced this afternoon. He'll be replaced by Deputy Secretary Lawrence Summers, whose nomination Clinton also announced. Undersecretary of State
Stuart Eizenstat
will be named Summers' replacement.
TSC
columnist
James Padhina
couldn't care less about it.
Russian President
Boris Yeltsin
sacked Prime Minister
Yevgeny Primakov
, appointing First Deputy Prime Minister
Sergei Stepashin
to act in his stead. The
Duma
, which meets tomorrow to discuss impeaching Yeltsin on five counts ranging from dissolving the Soviet Union to "genocide" against the Russian people, reacted by passing a nonbinding resolution urging Yeltsin to step down.
Yugoslav troops made one of the their deepest incursions into Albania today while fighting Kosovar rebels, according to international observers. NATO Secretary-General
Javier Solana
promised speedy retaliation by two dozen U.S. Apache helicopters deployed in Albania.
International
Nintendo
and electronics concern
Matsushita Electric Industrial
(MC) - Get Report
are forming a broad partnership to develop the next-generation Nintendo game console to be released in late 2000. Matsushita will produce digital video disc drives for the console, which will run on an
IBM
(IBM) - Get Report
PowerPC processor.
For more international news and commentary, click
here.
Elsewhere
Reclusive author
J.D. Salinger
won't need to philosophize about the cost of privacy much longer. The market will determine that on June 22, when writer and former lover
Joyce Maynard
will auction off a series of his letters chronicling the final year of their relationship, which began when Maynard was 18 and Salinger was 53.
The
New Jersey Nets
are moving -- to Newark. According to
The Star-Ledger
, the team's owners notified Gov.
Christine Whitman
of the news in a letter rejecting an offer to participate in a new Meadowlands sports complex. The move will happen by 2003, the paper wrote.
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