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Investors Turning a Profit in the Housing Market. those who buy new or existing houses for cjuick resale. As one Eastern Long Island contractor observed recently: "As soon as they sec an ad for houses in a new subdivision, they show up and buy one or more houses. The developer at that time has usually run out of credit at the bank because of rising costs during construction. He may also be nervous about finding buyers because of the recession.</br></br>deal, and then turn around and try to sell the units at a nice markup. If they can't compete with the developer, the investors will offer to rent the houses until the rest of the subdivision homes are sold."</br></br>But renting often is the undoing of many investors. Unless the rentor is a responsible person and the house is sound, the investor may have to spend his profits on repairs after the lease expires.</br></br>But for a growing number a house has become a lucrative form of investment or hedge against inflation, particularly in recent years.</br></br>The house investors’ gains have usually exceeded the interest rates on savings at banks, investments in the stock market and have compared favorably with the rate of inflation, which has been projected at 6 to 9 percent for 1977. | positive | 123306234 | yes | 6.0 | train | 6.0 | 100 |
RESERVE FREEDOM HELD VITAL BY BANK: Bankers Trust Head Declares Otherwise Way Will Be Paved to Federal Intervention RESERVE FREEDOM HELD VITAL BY BANK. If the Federal Reserve System’s activities were to be rigidly restricted, Government intervention in the lending and investing decisions of commercial banks is likely to be substituted, S. Sloan Colt, president of Bankers Trust Company, warns in his annual report to stockholders. The report was sent to stockholders over the weekend in advance of their annual meeting to be held on Wednesday.</br></br>“Congressional hearings are being held to determine the extent to which Federal Reserve policies should be responsive to Government influence,” Mr. Colt points out. “We believe that the public interest will be served best if the control of central bank policy continues to be exercised by a free and independent body. We believe that this position will be supported by all who value the contribution which a freely competitive private banking system can make to the continued growth and economic strength of our country.” 300,000, an increase of $3,800,000 over the previous year. Operating income rose $10,700,000 to a $44,-</br></br>300,000 record. This increase, Mr. Colt points out, was due to expanded lending activities and also reflects business which the bank acquired by merger. Net earnings were $7,200,000, or $2.41 a share, against $7,800,000, or $2.60, in 1950. ' Acting under the Treasury tax formula, the bank deducted $3,-000,000 from its income, as against $1,000,000 in the previous year, to be added to the special loan reserve. *</br></br>“The amount transferred to the reserve in 1951,” Mr. Colt explains, "was approximately the largest permissible under the formula.</br></br>“This action was taken because we deemed it desirable to take, advantage of the maximum tax saving available. Through this action, it was possible to reduce our income tax requirements by approximately $1,600,000 in 1951.” “Had we not elected to make this transfer to the reserve account, our net earnings and profits for 1951 would have been increased by about $1,400,000, which is the difference between the $3,000,000 set aside and the additional income taxes for which we would have been liable.” | negative | 112546210 | yes | 3.0 | train | 3.0 | 101 |
Fur Rides High on Fashion: Sales to Break The 1949 Record Mink Remains The Favorite. Auto sales may have cooled off again, and the general economic recovery may seem stalled, but in the fur business it's boom time. The industry hardly noticed the recession of 1974-75 and it’s certainly not noticing a slowdown now.</br></br>Retail volume is expected to break the record $550 million set in 1949, rising 25 percent to $650 million this year after five years of steady growth.</br></br>Why? Fashion, for one thing. The chances of seeing a fur over the newest Levi’s are becoming almost as good as finding one topping a Halston cashmere dress. In fact, the fur might be a Halston. Furriers, anxious for a promotional angle, have signed up long lists of designers and appear ready to sign up some more. By next year, Yves St. Laurent furs will lie available in the American market (Givenchy already is). Fred Goldin of Goldin-Feldntan is in the final stages of contracting with another of the fashion world’s top names to do furs.</br></br>In short, furs, once stigmatized as a rarified and indulgent symbol of established affluence have gained more democratic acceptance in recent years. Traditional mink still accounts for about half of dollar volume at retail— thanks in large part to the move toward ranching, rather than trapping the animals, which has meant the price of an average coal has risen only about 10 percent since 1948. But longer-haired furs, including raccoon, lynx, fox and sable have become increasingly popular—and some of their prices have doubled in just the last year.</br></br>"A woman is not waiting until she hits 40 and a pot of gold before she buys a fur." say? Leonard .1. Hankin. executive vice-president of Bergdorf Goodman. "I remember when Lil'i ni Heilman bought her first mink.” he went on. “She placed the order and ■then insisted on taking the skins to a cocktail party that night in honor of the success of her play ‘The Little Foxes.’ She bad arrived and she had the mink skins to prove it.” “We have a mother come in to buy a raccoon for her 16-year-oid daughter,” says Dorothy Kay, who for the past four and a half years has been buying furs for Henri Bendel. That can run easily to $3,500. | positive | 123014751 | yes | 7.0 | train | 7.0 | 102 |
Investors Appear Willing, But Markets Still Waver. Wall Street slogged through an uneven session yesterday, finishing mixed as investors grappled with troubling consumer spending patterns, slower growth from the manufacturing sector and the latest news of Hurricane Katrina’s damage.</br></br>Investors saw a disturbing trend in the Commerce Department’s consumer income and spending report. While consumer spending rose a solid 1 percent in July, incomes rose</br></br>Yet the losses were minimal, and volume was extremely heavy for a market still struggling through Wall • Street’s summer doldrums — a sign ..that investors were still willing to .. buy stocks, even if they didn’t quite - jtnow where to put their money, as . reflected in volatile prices.</br></br>.'. The Dow Jones industrial average / fell 21.97 points, or 0.21 percent, to 10,459.63 after posting a 68-point gain Wednesday.</br></br>Broader stock indicators were narrowly mixed. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index rose 1.26 points, or 0.1 percent, to 1,221.59, and the Nasdaq composite index dropped 4.19 points, or 0.19 percent, to 2,147.90. | negative | 93042514 | yes | 3.0 | train | 3.0 | 103 |
Mixed Day, but Indexes Post Solid Gains for the Week. Strong reports for consumer spending and earnings were not enough to fend off the preholiday doldrums on Wall Street yesterday as stocks finished mixed in an uninspired session. The major indexes, however, did manage d week of solid gains for the first time in more than a month.</br></br>Profit taking after the previous session's rally kept prices lower as investors took a rare chance to lock in gains. Volume was low in advance of the Memorial Day holiday as well.</br></br>"We’ve made some good progress in the past few days, but the market’s tired,” said Russ Koesterich, equity strategist at the State Street Corporation in Boston. "The market was oversold coming into mid-May. Investors have been nibbling, but we haven’t seen the kind of volume that would suggest that the institutions are really coming in.”</br></br>The Dow Jones industrial average fell 16.75 points, or 0.2 percent, to 10,188.45. Broader stock indicators were mixed. The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index slipped 0.60, to 1,120.68, and the Nasdaq composite index was up 2.24, or 0.1 percent, at 1,986.74.</br></br>For the week, the Dow gained 221.71, or 2.2 percent, the S.& P. rose 27.12, or 2.5 percent, and the Nasdaq was up 74,65, or 3.9 percent. It was the first positive week for the Dow and S.& P. after four straight weeks of losses, while the Nasdaq posted Its second consecutive week of gains. | positive | 92730868 | yes | 7.0 | train | 7.0 | 104 |
Wall St. Uneasy As Stocks Slide: Dow Plummets by 83.11 And Nasdaq Falls 3.1% As Buyers Flee Equities Dow Drops 83.11 Points; Nasdaq Plummets by 3.1%. Stocks tumbled yesterday, as signs of weakening corporate profits further shook the confidence of investors already worried about the prospect of higher interest rates.</br></br>The Dow Jones Industrial average fell as much as 156 points before recovering to end down 83.11 points, or 1.5 percent. A bigger loser was the Nasdaq market, which dropped 3.1 percent, dragged down by sharp declines in shares of technology and health care companies.</br></br>The recent losses in stocks signal what some market analysts contend will be an increasingly turbulent time for investors. After a year and a half of powerful gains, with very few clouds on its horizon, the stock market is threatening to become much more volatile. And investors’ enthusiasm for stocks may be waning as a result.</br></br>Investors fled the stock market yesterday as more signs of weakening corporate profits further shook confidence already undermined by fears of higher interest rates.</br></br>Led by significant declines among technology and health care stocks, the biggest loser was the Nasdaq Composite Index, which posted its second-worst drop of the year with loss of 3.1 percent. | negative | 109633722 | yes | 3.0 | train | 3.0 | 105 |
Government Spreading Net To Break Market Free Falls: U.S. Building Safety Net for Market. Prodded by the likelihood of periodic plunges in stock market prices, the Federal Government, like it or not, is becoming committed to emergency measures to limit the damage from these frightening episodes.</br></br>That emerging safety net for the market showed itself in the Government’s actions immediately after the 190-point plunge in the Dow Jones industrial average on Friday, Oct. 13. In the two weeks since then, various new damage-control measures have been proposed and debated.</br></br>But a containment procedure patched together by the Governmeni could encourage speculation by creating “the false sense that there isn’t going to be too much downside risk in stock prices without the Government stepping in,” said David R. Jones, chief economist at Aubrey G. Lanston, a Wall Street firm.</br></br>The Federal Reserve Board has made the most obvious bailout commitment, hurrying the word out after the Oct. 13 plunge that it would provide adequate credit to buy stocks when the market reopened on Oct. 16. Such offers of easy credit, however, can sometimes bring down intesest rates and be inflationary.</br></br>Less publicly, the Securities and Exchange Commission also stepped in that weekend, with staff members making dozens of telephone calls to major traders. The calls tended to discourage further selling, the traders said. | negative | 110189116 | yes | 4.0 | train | 4.0 | 106 |
Awaiting the Inflation Numbers: A Money Manager Bets on Low Rates. This could be a disturbing day for Ed Labenski, the president of IDS' Fixed-Income Advisors. A surprising-' ly large jump in the May Producer; Price Index, which is to be released today, could undermine his recent strategy of betting on low inflation and stable to declining interest rates.</br></br>Mr. Labenski is one of the money managers who has not lost the belief that inflation is heading lower. The surge in inflation in the first four months of the year — with the Con-j sumer Price Index rising at a 4.3; percent annual rate — has already! forced many other managers to; switch their strategies, giving up, hope for lower inflation this year and; expecting that interest rates will be* 1 stable to higher. ; "You may get fits and starts, but in the long term, inflation should not be; a problem,” Mr. Labenski said, citing the declining path of inflation he has seen since the 1970’s. "The trend on inflation remains intact. We are edg-, ing lower.” .</br></br>Because of this confidence, Mr. Labenski is “long his bogey,” and has been for quite some time. Bogey is the market jargon for the benchmark index of government and corporate bonds against which IDS measures its performance. In this case, the benchmark is the Lehman Brothers index of government and corporate bonds.</br></br>The average maturity of the bonds in the Lehman index is 8.9 years. The average maturity of Mr. Labenski’s portfolios, which total $3.2 billion of money from pension and endowment funds, is 14.8 years. It is the fact that his average maturity is greater than Lehman’s that makes him long his bogey.</br></br>To be long is a bet that long-term interest rates will be stable or will fall. It is a bet that adds volatility and risk to Mr. Labenski’s portfolio. If he ; is wrong, the price fall of his portfolio will be larger than that of his bogey, because long term maturities have bigger price moves than short-term maturities in response to changes in interest rates. | negative | 109100112 | yes | 4.0 | train | 4.0 | 107 |
Shares Decline on Concern Over Possible Rise in Rates. ' A couple of weeks ago, big bank h mergers helped catapult the stock i market to new highs. Yesterday, -Daimler-Benz’s proposed acquisition Chrysler just helped prevent it from falling further.</br></br>As investors awaited the Labor Department’s April employment re-,->port due this morning, they sold ,i 3£ross the board. Microsoft fell as 0 concerns increased about possible r!new antitrust suits. Pfizer dropped “‘for a third consecutive session, after a wild run-up on the release of its ^impotence drug, Viagra. Disney \ pjunged after an analyst reduced his earnings estimates.</br></br>Today’s jobs report will give the Y first broad look at the strength of the "economy in the second quarter. It '"has made investors nervous because</br></br>Federal Reserve officials have made it clear recently that they are likely to raise interest rates if the rapid 4.2 percent growth of the first quarter does not slow down.</br></br>The uncertainty about the Fed and the outlook for earnings appear to be shifting the stock market into a flat but volatile period after a strong rally in the first four months of the year. And it will take a positive resolution of the interest rate and earnings outlooks to open the door to another strong rally. The recent sharp declines of stock markets around Asia is also refocusing investors on the possible fallout from the economic turmoil there that began with massive currency devaluations last year. | negative | 109878634 | yes | 3.3333333333333335 | train | 3.0 | 108 |
JAPAN REVERSES RECESSION TREND: Much of Earnings Invested in Development Projects Japan Turns Recession Trend Into a New Period of Expansion. TOKYO—Japan’s economy Is moving out of the recession that followed the 1957 slump in the United States and elsewhere. It caught Japanese industry in a period of over-expansion. After falling back sharply from the peak of prosperity reached in 1956, Japan appears to be set firmly once again on the highroad to well-being in all aspects of her economic life.</br></br>The permanence of the bright prospects forecast by all the; basic indicators today will depend, as always, on Japan’s continued access to raw materials at attractive prices, and the availability of profitable export markets for her fabricated products. The contribution of the Japanese in the unending process of trade on which their lives depend is hard work and</br></br>At the moment, the Japanese economy is found to be operating on a fundamentally sound basis in terms of six cardinal I criteria:</br></br>UThe budget of the Government of Premier Nobusuke Kishi is more than balanced with tax reductions and expansions of public welfare expenditures in prospect for 1959.</br></br>UNational indebtedness, slightly over 52,000,000,000 including short-term obligations, is nominal in terms of the national economy. | negative | 114749800 | yes | 3.0 | train | 3.0 | 109 |
Connecticut's Economy Is Now One of Best in U.S.. STAMFORD, Conn., Sept. 17 — Fueled by high levels of defense spending and enjoying one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country, the economy of Connecticut in recent months has become one of the nation's strongest.</br></br>Connecticut, home to the country’s most highly concentrated group of major defense contractors, has been the richest beneficiary of increased military spending under President Reagan. The Pentagon spent $5.13 billion in the stale last year, or $1,625 for each of the state’s residents. The figure far exceeds the per capita spending for military equipment in any other state.</br></br>As Connecticut's business with the military booms, state officials and economists here maintain that the state’s economy is changing in ways that will bring more lasting and more predictable benefits than the Defense Department’s procurements.</br></br>Small, technologically advanced companies are moving in to replace brass mills, textile plants and other outdated factories. At the same time, businesses are opening almost daily to support new corporate office complexes in Stamford, Hartford and other Connecticut cities. “You are looking at important, structural changes in a state economy, and most of the growth is in the nondefense areas,” said John</br></br>Because of the growth of high technology, service industries and other businesses outside the military equipment field, he said, the state has become less dependent on the Pentagon to spur its economic expansion. | positive | 122543911 | yes | 7.5 | train | 8.0 | 110 |
Bond Prices Plummet, Perplexing Analysts: Prices Fall in a Puzzling Day CREDIT MARKETS. In a tumultuous and puzzling trading session yesterday, the credit markets ignored fresh statistics showing a weak economy and low inflation and pushed short- and long-term interest rates up sharply.</br></br>As rates moved up, prices plummeted more than 2 points, or $20 per $1,000 face amount, for some longterm Treasury issues.</br></br>This performance was a sharp surprise to many market participants. They had expected higher prices and lower interest rates to follow the Commerce Department’s announcement of a weaker-th an-expected 1.7 percent growth rate for the gross national product during the second quarter, compared with the 3.1 percent estimated last month. The second quarter’s 2.8 percent inflation rate was another reason traders had expected bond prices to remain steady or rise.</br></br>“I don’t have any good explanation,” said the head of the government securities trading desk at one New York firm. “But the market is behaving as if it was overbought, with • a lot of long positions for which there are no buyers.” ing over the last two days but added that heavy speculative selling had to be present, too, to bring on such a sharp drop in prices.</br></br>By late in the day, rates on Treasury bills and other short-term securities were higher by as much as a quarter of a percentage point, with six-month Treasury bills bid at 7.27 percent, up from 7.04 percent. Yields on large certificates of deposit issued by banks rose by similar amounts, with six-month issues quoted late in the day at just under 8 percent. | negative | 111316923 | yes | 3.0 | train | 3.0 | 111 |
The Millionaire Club--Up 15%: Most Found in New York The Millionaire Club Grows 15% in Year A Large Increase in Jersey. You don’t have to be a Rockefeller or a Ford to be a millionaire today. With a little help from inflation, the once-exclusive class of American millionaires is no longer a tight little club.</br></br>Some 520,000 Americans — a quarter of 1 percent of the United States population — qualify as of the middle of this year, according to a marketing study released yesterday by the U.S. Trust Corporation.</br></br>Although neither the bank nor anyone else actually has a list of these millionaires, the trust company has developed a computer model that calculates the millionaire population in the United States. This is the first year that the results have been released publicly, although the U.S. Trust has spun out the projections internally for more than a decade and says they come close to the data on wealth occasionally published by the Government.</br></br>“The market we seek is the high net worth individual, and we regard this as pretty reliable information,” said Thomas A. Melfe, executive vice president at U.S. Trust, which manages some $6 billion in personal assets. "We draw on a lot of different sources to make these projections," Mr. Melfe said, Including the surveys of wealth published occasionally by the Internal Revenue Service. (The last Government data available are from 1972.)</br></br>The number of millionaires in America this year is up 15 percent from mid-1978, when there were 450,000 millionaires, the Trust Company figures show. | positive | 120785769 | yes | 8.0 | train | 8.0 | 112 |
Dow, After Seesawing, Falls by 4.97. For Periods shown. (N) Indicates stock Is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, (A) the American Stock Exchanoeand<0)Over-the-Counfer. ^ b includes a gain from restructuring of employee benefit plans ol 130,581.000 for bolh the quarter and 6 months.</br></br>c-Includes a net gain of $9,469,000 from restructuring of employee benefit plans and a net loss of $3,515,000 resulting from adjustments required by the Tax Reform Act of 1986, principally the repeal of the Investment tax credit.</br></br>b includes a $10 million alter-tax gain on the sate of certain oil and gas properties; a $19 million alter-tax gain related to the sale ot a corporate asset and a *35 million alter-tax charge for early redemption ol certain debt issues.</br></br>The company said Ms first and second quarter net lor fiscal 1987 was reduced bv $551,000 due to the eJJmina tion of the Investment tax credit.</br></br>b-lncludes a credit of $16,110,000, oi 20 cenfs a share, from a one-lime nonrecurring change In the method of accounting for unbilled revenue al AZP's Arizona Public Service Co. subsidiary. | negative | 110805269 | yes | 3.0 | train | 3.0 | 113 |
11.41 Drop Puts Dow At 995.15: Dow Tumbles 11.41 On Rate Worries Volume Is Lower. Wall Street’s uncertainty over the direction of interest rates sent the stock market down sharply yesterday in much slower trading. The Dow Jones industrial average plunged 11.41 points, to 995.15, closing below the 1,000 level for the first time in the last five sessions.</br></br>The drop on the New York Stock Exchange was broadly based, with declines exceeding advances by a ratio of more than 2 to 1. The weakest performers were some of the blue chips and the technology and energy-related issues that had scored impressive gains on Wednesday when bargain hunters moved in after months of declines in those groups.</br></br>John C. Pistell, chief technical analyst of Stires & Company, said that "unless interest rates decline from their current levels, the stock market will continue to drop.”</br></br>Mr. Pistell noted that the market’s weakness yesterday also resulted from a lack of institutional buying and in part reflected "the softness in the bond market," where prices fell as yields rose substantially for the second consecutive day after having declined for the last six weeks. [Page D7.]</br></br>percent from 20 percent. Last week, Chemical was the only major bank to lower its prime rate a full percentage point, to 19 percent, the lowest among the nation’s major banks. Bankers Trust and Citibank subsequently went to 19% percent from 20 percent. Analysts said that stock market investors were becoming increasingly concerned that interest rates were not declining swiftly enough and might even start rising again. One reason many of the large banks have been reluctant to reduce their prime rate, they said, is that the Federal funds rate banks charge one another for overnight loans has remained high in recent days. Yesterday, the Federal funds rate rose to more than 22 percent at one point, after opening at 19% percent. | negative | 121763051 | yes | 3.0 | train | 3.0 | 114 |
Bond Prices Mixed at Close: Home-Sales Report Erases Earlier Gains. In moderately active trading yesterday, the prices of Treasury notes and bonds were mixed as market participants reacted somewhat negatively to a report that showed the big drop in interest rates might be stimulating the housing industry.</br></br>Prices moved higher early in the session but slumped after the Commerce Department reported that sales of new single-family homes rose “The report reminded people that not all sectors of the economy are weak, and that perhaps we won’t have a recession after all,” said Maury N. Harris, the chief economist at the Paine Webber Group. “But the stimulative impact from lower rates on housing will be limited, and won’t be sufficient to raise the other sectors of the economy that are weak right now.”</br></br>The other event of the session occurred late 'in the day, when the Treasury announced its plans for refunding auctions.</br></br>In its announcement, the Treasury said it planned to sell a total of $29.5 billion in new 3-year and 10-year notes and in 30-year bonds. But the dates of the sales are tentative because Congress has not yet passed an increase in the Federal debt ceiling.</br></br>As of now, the auctions will begin next week when $10 billion worth of three-year notes are to be sold on Tuesday. The next day, $9.75 billion in 10-year notes are tentatively scheduled to be auctioned. And on Thursday, $9.75 billion in new bonds will be sold. | negative | 110283150 | yes | 4.0 | train | 4.0 | 115 |
JOHNSON IMPLIES TAX CUT SUPPORT: In Senate Speech, He Hints at Action -- Democratic Council Backs Slash JOHNSON IMPLIES TAX CUT SUPPORT. WASHINGTON, April 29— The Democratic leader of the Senate went out of his way today to keep the door open for an anti-recession tax cut.</br></br>Senator Lyndon B. Johnson, of Texas, in a floor speech, said that if spending measures already taken failed to "do the job’’ of curing the recession, "then there is nothing left for us to do but pass legislation that will get it done.”</br></br>He had said earlier today that “if we don’t provide a 'cure to the recession in public works, there is no other alternative but tax revision.”</br></br>The Democratic Advisory Council, meanwhile, came out in favor of a tax cut as part of a three-point anti-recession program. The two other points were more Government civilian spending and more aggressive easy-money policies by the Federal Reserve System.</br></br>Senator Johnson did not specifically cite tax cuts in his speech, presumably because of his strong feelings about the prerogative of the House to originate all tax measures. | negative | 114483582 | yes | 3.6666666666666665 | train | 4.0 | 116 |
Where Is the Slowdown?. WASHINGTON —As inflation gathered iteam starting In mid-1967, practically everyone—last of all Congress—came to recog-ize that the American economy needed slowing down. Congress joined the consensus in late June of this year by passing a severely restrictive fiscal package, including a 10 per cent Income tax surcharge, to curb total demand and spending In the economy.</br></br>Figures released last week showed little sign of one yet. The gross national product, or total output of goods and services, rose briskly in the third quarter, at a rate only slightly less than the booming first half.</br></br>Consumer spending spurted In July, Ironically, just as higher withholding taxes were taking effect, and has remained on a high plateau since. Industrial production, allowing for the special effect of a reduction in steel inventories built up in anticipation of a strike that did not occur, has also remained at the peak reached in July.</br></br>And of course prices are still going up much too fast. the top economists of the Johnson Administration, who so fervently pushed the tax bill, are a little disappointed but not fazed by the results to date. These are their main explanations: <ITo keep up their spending, consumers cut their savings sharply — again something not likely to repeat Itself.</br></br>Arthur M. Okun, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, issued a statement saying there had been no change In the fundamental view of the council that the economy "Is embarked on a slowdown decisive enough to Improve our price performance markedly." He warned against "Impatience” and said it would be a "tragedy” to push restraint still harder to achieve "an instantaneous slowdown." | negative | 118192268 | yes | 3.6666666666666665 | train | 4.0 | 117 |
Article 1 -- No Title: Making Money The Bearish Way. ^■kNYBODY who was prescient enough to sell the stock market short before August’s steep slide has done pretty well. But Jim Grant, the founder and editor of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer, has done better than most, at least on paper. And in Mr. Grant’s view the market is likely to remain a short-sellers’ bonanza for some time.</br></br>Short-sellers, the classic bear market strategists, sell shares of borrowed stock, betting that the price will fall before they must repurchase the stock and return it-to its rightful owners. The difference between the original price and a lower repurchase price is the profit, and a plunging market is a short-seller’s friend.</br></br>But while the market is down more than 10 percent so far this year, measured by the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index, the five stocks that Mr. Grant shorted in his paper portfolio in January — Manufacturers Hanover, First Executive, Texas Air (now Continental Holdings), and two closed-end funds, the Taiwan Fund and the Spain Fund — have fallen about 50 percent. His profits, of course, have grown accordingly.</br></br>Mr. Grant emphasized that he is not a professional investment adviser, and that the only money he manages is his own. (His management of that money has become a minor legend in credit market circles: He and his wife sold their New York apartment in the summer of 1989, and put up that cash to short the stock market. “We’ve done nicely," he said.)</br></br>His paper portfolio of short positions was assembled at the end of December, at the prompting of “Wall Street Week,” public television’s popular market program. His performance so far this year has put him in first place in the running for the program’s stock-picker’s crown. | negative | 108487769 | yes | 3.0 | train | 3.0 | 118 |
INTEREST RATES HALT RAPID RISE: Bond Markets Are Steady -Renewed Climb Expected. The money and bond markets yesterday halted their headlong rush to higher interest rates and turned in a steady performance in subdued trading.</br></br>There were scattered increases for certain bank certificates of deposit. But another key money instrument, malned under upward pressure, but corporate issues found a measure of investor interest and yields declined.</br></br>Despite this over-all steadiness, however, there was little conviction in Wall Street that the trend toward higher rates had been arrested for very long.</br></br>Dealers pointed to rekindled fears of strong inflation, spurred by the pickup in business activity and resulting strong credit demands as reasons for caution.</br></br>The biggest new financing yesterday found investors nevertheless willing to step in and make purchases. | negative | 119590998 | yes | 4.0 | train | 4.0 | 119 |
Dow Falls 14.19 Points In Moderate Trading. The stock market retreated a bit in moderate trading yesterday, moving in concert with a listless bond market.</br></br>After reaching a new high in the previous session, the Dow Jones industrial average dropped 14.19 points to close at 2,436.86. On the Big Board, decliners outpaced gainers by about 3 to 2, with 593 issues advancing and 904 declining; 150.5 million shares changed hands, against 173.5 million on Thursday, and broader market yardsticks also retreated. The New York Stock Exchange composite index slipped 0.88 point, to 172.67, and the S.&P. 500 stock index fell 1.80 points, to 307.16.</br></br>"The bond market is weak,” said Steven G. Einhorn, a market strategist at Goldman, Sachs & Company, “and the stock market, at least in the last month, has taken its cue from the bond market. Without bond market cooperation, the stock market is finding it difficult to make any headway.” "It was a quiet day — a boring day,” a block trader at the First Boston Corporation said after the close. Nor did the outlook for next week look much better as many Wail Street experts noted that some professionals will be getting an early jump on the upcoming Fourth of July holiday by taking off the entire week.</br></br>Analysts said that news reports on the Vienna meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries probably helped to nudge interest rates up and revive inflationary fears. The ministers were apparently near an agreement on a lower production quota for the end of the year than originally planned.</br></br>The possibility of higher fuel prices seemed to touch off some interest in the oil stocks. Royal Dutch Petroleum rose 1%, to 129% and ARCO climbed 2, to 94. | negative | 110745475 | yes | 3.0 | train | 3.0 | 120 |
From the Ground Up: Tempering its expectations in a slow economy, Women's Professional Soccer is following the playbook of a small business. Women’s Professional Soccer, which began in April, is banking on stars like Kristine Lilly of the United States national team.</br></br>/^’"‘CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Selling Americans on professional soccer ■ has been tough. Selling them on women’s team sports has been tougher: Selling them on a new women’s soccer league during a deep recession may prove to be - -■ the toughest task of all.</br></br>Yet with high hopes and low expectations, the Women’s Professional Soccer league started its first season in April. The seven-Yl; team league lias no television ;a; rights deal, a meager media budg-sjj.fciC and just a handful of major ifcu'iv^ponsors. It also must overcome history: The Women’s United Soccer Association, built on a wave of support after the host United "jmStates won the 1999 Women’s JUjjWorld Cup, folded after only three .seasons.</br></br>“I;, But hard times can be instruc-.-Y tional, and those associated with -jYthe new league'say they have a ' plan to keep their venture going ~~ longer than their predecessor did.</br></br>S565.000 on players’ salaries, and marketing budgets are modest. To reduce costs, teams travel with 16 players from their 18-player rosters, and the league’s championship game wiil be held at the home field of "the top-seeded team. | negative | 1030644558 | yes | 4.0 | train | 4.0 | 121 |
Dow Drops 4.50, Following Bonds Lower. Stocks moved lower yesterday, following a bond market that was briefly puzzled by a two-word remark that the Federal Reserve Board later said was an attempt at humor by a Fed governor.</br></br>' The Dow Jones industrial average, closed down 4.50 points,- to 3,851.72,. and the broader Standard & Poor’s |500 was down 1.03 points, to 465.88. The smaller-company Nasdaq com-, iposite index dropped 2.93 points, to. 792.12.</br></br>! Sons in St Louis, said he saw a continuation of the pattern of a modest rally followed by a modest retreat for the next few sessions. That has been the pattern since Feb. 4, "Fed Friday,”, when the Federal Reserve Board "I'm still bullish, but the bull is 42 months old,” Mr. Goldman said. "He goes up two, then down one and takes a nap.”</br></br>As fdr a further correction, Mr. Goldman, in the minority among analysts, said he believed that the market had already touched bottom. Last Wednesday, he noted, the Dow hit an intraday low of 3,756.04, down almost 6 percent from the Dow’s Jan. 31 peak of 3,978.36.</br></br>dragged down'by economically sensitive stocks. Allied Signal declined 1%, to 771/6, and Alcoa fell to Tty*. | negative | 109272935 | yes | 3.0 | train | 3.0 | 122 |
PRICES OF STOCKS DECLINE SLIGHTLY: Dow Average Falls by 1.02 Point as Trading Rises-- Consolidation Is Seen PRICES OF STOCKS DECLINE SLIGHTLY. file stock market finished with a small loss yesterday in slightly heavier trading as late selling pressure erased earlier gains.</br></br>“The market still is in its consolidation phase following its steep rise since mid-December,” one Wall Street observer said. Yesterday’s decline was the third consecutive drop.</br></br>At the close, the Dow Jones industrial average was off 1.02 point at 760.56. Its high was posted at 11:30 A.M. when the Dow was ahead 5.94 points.</br></br>The early strength was attributed mostly to bargin hunting. There were no specific news developments to account for the afternoon downtrend. However, some brokers said that investors’ concern over the virtual loss of South Vietnam and the widening recession was mounting.</br></br>Declines on the New York Stock Exchange outnumbered advances by 744 to 565. A total of 37 issues made new 1975 highs ' while 9 stocks finished at new lows. | negative | 120686766 | yes | 3.5 | train | 4.0 | 123 |
U.S. JOBLESS RATE TUMBLES TO 5.4% ON SURGE IN HIRING: STOCKS AND DOLLAR RISE 4-Year Low in Unemployment -- Markets See Signals of Continuing Expansion Jobless Rate Declines to A 4-Year Low. WASHINGTON. March 10 — An unexpectedly large number of Americans found new jobs in February, and the unemployment rate matched a four-year low by dropping three-tenths of a point, to 5.4 percent, the Labor Department reported today.</br></br>After a tumultuous week in the financial markets, as the dollar hit record lows against both the German mark and the Japanese yen before recovering somewhat, investors found something to cheer in the latest figures. Under the weight of a yearlong series of interest-rate increases engineered by the Federal Reserve, economic growth is finally showing signs of slowing to a pace that could help extend the expansion that began in 1991.</br></br>The jump last month in job creation might typically have led to a selloff in markets that are often unnerved by evidence of exuberant growth that could lead to higher inflation. But traders were encouraged to buy United States assets because the economy appeared to be growing fast enough to keep any threat of recession at bay.</br></br>After an initial drop, bond prices rose as traders and investors delved behind the early headlines that suggested a rebound in growth to find further signs of an economic slowdown and a lack of pressure to bolster wages. The Dow Jones industrial average soared more than 50 points to a record, and other stock indexes climbed as well on expectations that profits would remain strong. The dollar regained some of the ground it lost earlier this week.</br></br>The dollar, which was helped by Mexico’s announcement of a new austerity package, got an extra lift as currency traders appeared to conclude that the Fed now had no reason to flirt with lowering rates to bolster the economy and might even lift them at least once more. The central bank has historically avoided raising rates solely to make the dollar, more attractive to international investors. The American financial commitment to Mexico has been one of several factors depressing the dollar. | positive | 109426345 | yes | 8.0 | train | 8.0 | 124 |
I.M.F. Warns That U.S. Debt Is Threatening Global Stability. WASHINGTON, Jan. 7 - With its rising budget deficit and ballooning trade imbalance, the United Stales is running up a foreign debt of such record-breaking proportions that it threatens the financial stability of the global economy, according to a report released Wednesday by the international Monetary Fund.Prepared by a team of I.M.F. economists, the report sounded a loud alarm about the shaky fiscal foundation of the United States, questioning the wisdom of the Bush administration’s tax cuts and warning that large budget deficits pose "significant risks" not just for the United States but for the rest of the world.</br></br>The report warns that the United States’ net financial obligations to the rest of the world could be equal to 40 percent of its total economy within a few years — "an unprecedented level of external debt for a large industrial country,” according to the fund, that could play havoc with the value of the dollar and international exchange rates.</br></br>The danger, according to the report, is that the United States’ voracious appetite for borrowing could push up global interest rates and thus slow global investment and economic growth.</br></br>“Higher borrowing costs abroad would mean that the adverse effects of U.S. fiscal deficits would spill over into global investment and output,” the report said.</br></br>White House officials dismissed the report as alarmist, saying that President Bush has already vowed to reduce the budget deficit by half over the next five years. The deficit reached $374 billion last year, a record in dollar terms but not as a share of the total economy, and it is expected to exceed $400 billion this year. | negative | 92673226 | yes | 3.0 | train | 3.0 | 125 |
Tobacco Price Reductions Could Help the Bond Market: CREDIT MARKETS Tobacco Cuts May Help Bonds. Philip Morris’s 40-cent-a-pack cut In the price of Its Marlboro cigarettes was bad news for the stock market, other cigarette companies and the idea of brand-name attraction. But the news could turn out to be a help for the bond market.</br></br>Tobacco price increases over the last year have been a major factor in the increases in both the Producer Price Index and the Consumer Price Index. In the 12 months through February, tobacco prices were the fastest-rising component of the consumer index, rising 10.4 percent. For the producer index for the 12 months, the rise in tobacco prices has accounted for about three-tenths of a percentage point of the 1.8 percent increase.</br></br>The cut in Marlboro prices, if it spreads, could take some pressure off inflation at a time when price jitters seem to have capped the bond market rally that began just after the Presidential election. That rally sent the yield on the 30-year bond down to a 16-year low of 6.72 percent on March 8. It was the expectation of many investors that inflation would decline this</br></br>Joel Popkin, the head of his own research firm in Washington, said that he expected a broad cut in tobacco prices could trim one- to two-teriths of a percentage point off the Producer Price Index. The impact on the Consumer Price Index will be less because this price Index covers goods and services while the producer index covers just the cost of goods.</br></br>Mr. Popkin also thinks the reductions may come as other prices are slowing in the middle of the year, aiding in inflation's moderation. ‘Better Prices’ "It will come at a time when there will be better prices in general so inflation will look even better and some bond market participants may choose to interpret it as a sign that prices are starting to recede,” he said. | positive | 109209892 | yes | 6.5 | train | 6.0 | 126 |
For U.S. Airlines, a Sudden Lust for Foreign Entanglements: How wise is it to allow domestic carriers to look abroad for capital?. THE nation's airlines, many of them burdened with debt, have plunged into a crisis under the twin pressures of recession and higher fuel prices. Consolidation, through merger or bankruptcy, threatens to sweep the industry.</br></br>Amid this sudden distress, there is a growing temptation to look abroad in search of capital to save the struggling airlines and further bolster the power of the stronger companies. This has renewed the debate over whether it is time to lift the limits on foreign involvement in the domestic air travel market.</br></br>The question is whether it would be wise — or helpful — to change the legal limits that prevent foreigners from exercising financial control over domestic airlines, especially the law that blocks foreign companies from owning more than 25 percent of an American airline’s equity.</br></br>Transportation Secretary Samuel K. Skinner “plans to take the first ten days of January and basically go into a full court press” on this issue, Jeffrey Shane, Assistant Secretary of</br></br>The issue is one that Mr. Skinner has confronted before, notably in 1989, when KLM Royal Dutch Airways invested in a leveraged buyout of Northwest Airlines and British Airways flirted inconclusively with an investment group attempting to buy out United Airlines. | negative | 108428027 | yes | 3.0 | train | 3.0 | 127 |
GOVERNORS URGE RECESSION PARLEY: White House Session Asked to Win Bipartsian Plan -Proposed by Ribicoff. MIAMI BEACH, May 20—A proposal that President Eisenhower convene a special White Housg conference to reach agreement with Congressional leaders on an anti-recession program won strong support today at the fiftieth annual Governors Conference'.</br></br>The proposal was made hy Gov. Abraham A. Ribicoff of Connecticut during a panel discussion .on economic problems confronting the states. It won immediate support from How-</br></br>As explained by Governor Ribicoff, a Democrat, the conference would bring together the President and the Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and the Senate. It would consider such topics as tax reduction, expansion of public works and unemployment insurance.</br></br>By putting into effect a moratorium on partisan politics, such a conference could agree on a program that would end “government by stalemate,” Governor Ribicoff said.</br></br>He refrained from suggesting that representatives of the Governors Conference be invited and he made, the point that the Democratic majorities in Congress and the Republican Administration would have to avoid any attempt to gain partisan advantage' from it; i Mr. Pyle, a former Governor; “It makes sense to me and I am sure that the President will give it every consideration,” he declared. | negative | 114471858 | yes | 4.0 | train | 4.0 | 128 |
Spending Slips 0.1%; Income Up: Personal Income Spending Declines 0.1% Widespread Weakness. WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 (AP)—Consumer spending, for months an island of strength in a weak economy, declined by one-tenth of 1 percent in September, the Government reported today.</br></br>The decline, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1,950 billion, followed a rise of 2 percent in August. It was seen by analysts as another sign that the economy has slipped into recession.</br></br>The spending figures were part of a Commerce Department report that said personal income increased $19.6 billion, or eight-tenths of 1 percent, in September to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $2,461 billion. Increases in interest income and bonuses paid to postal workers contributed to the moderate rise, the report said.</br></br>Robert Ortner, the Commerce Department’s chief economist, cautioned that the September spending decline was mostly a result of erratic car sales, which plummeted after rising 2 percent, or $36.4 billion, in August.</br></br>ing weakness likely had carried over into the start of the year’s final quarter, saying, “October may not be all that strong.” six-tenths of 1 percent, or 55.9 billion, less than half the August increase. Mr. Ortner said that the small degree of gain “reflects the declines in employment that had previously been reported.” | negative | 121721767 | yes | 3.0 | train | 3.0 | 129 |
RATE OF GROWTH SLOWS FOR MONEY: Reserve's Figures Indicate Expansion Has Subsided in Recent Weeks RATE OF GROWTH SLOWS FOR MONEY. Monetary expansion, which earlier in the year had quickened at a rate that some economists regarded as excessive, has subsided somewhat in recent weeks, Federal Reserve figures indicated yesterday.</br></br>The money supply, for example, averaged $234.7-billion in the four weeks ended May 12, which represented a 10.8 per cent seasonally adjusted, compounded annual . growth rate in tine three months ended on that date. By contrast, two weeks earlier, the quarterly growth rate was 11.5 per cent.</br></br>To some degree, Reserve operations were distorted this week by the Treasury Department’s decision to "monetize” —that is, convert into money— its $828-million paper profit that resulted from the increase in the official price of gold to i $38 an ounce from $35 as part of the devaluation of the dollar.</br></br>On Monday, the Treasury issued $828-million in “gold certificates” to the Federal Reserve System, which the system "paid” for by crediting a like amount to the Treasury’s accounts at the 12 Reserve Banks.</br></br>The Treasury then proceeded to spend these funds—both for regular Government operations as well as to pay off $700-million of Treasury notes that came due on Monday and were not refunded—plus a substantial additional amount. | positive | 119430158 | yes | 8.0 | train | 8.0 | 130 |
5.9% OUT OF WORK: Decline in Factory Jobs Leads Way in Loss of 267,000 Positions Joblessness Rises to a 3-Year High; the Federal Reserve Eases Credit. WASHINGTON, Dec. 7 — In a report of almost unrelieved gloom, the Government said today that the economy lost more than a quarter of a million jobs in November. The unemployment rate climbed two-tenths of a point to 5.9 percent, the highest since October 1987.</br></br>The number of goods-producing jobs skidded by 255,000, far more than expected, with downturns in every durable-goods industry. Factory jobs accounted for 200,000 of the loss. Almost</br></br>Action on Interest Rates Today’s report, which seemed to remove any remaining doubt among most economists that the economy had slipped into recession, clearly worried the Federal Reserve Board. Shortly after the report was released, the Federal Reserve moved for the second time this week to make money more available. To stimulate the economy, it injected money into the banking system, pushing down by about a quarter point the rate banks charge each other for temporary loans. [Page 33.]</br></br>A few regional banks cut their prime lending rates to 934 percent from 10 percent, the first drop in nearly a year. But credit market analysts said large banks would be reluctant to follow because it would further reduce depressed profits. The analysts said that the Federal Reserve would have to loosen credit further before borrowers would see lower rates on home mortgages and home equity and other loans. [Page 37.] ‘Unambiguous’ Figures The unemployment figures released today are “unambiguous,” said Irwin L. Kellner, chief economist at Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company. “Now the question is how are you going to get out” of the downturn.</br></br>Today’s figures painted “a dismal picture” of the job market, the Commissioner of Labor Statistics, Janet L. | negative | 108447426 | yes | 2.6666666666666665 | train | 3.0 | 131 |
Economic Scene: Rudderless In the Recession. THE numbers say the recession is over. But with the latest polls showing that 78 percent of registered voters disapprove of President Bush’s economic performance, it is plain that Americans aren't listening. Why, then, is candidate Bush confining his economic maneuvers to jawboning the Federal Reserve for easier credit?</br></br>The short answer is that even if Washington had the will to stimulate the economy quickly, it lacks the way. "The next six months," notes Neal Soss of First Boston, “are baked in the cake.”</br></br>The long answer is more interesting. Many analysts believe that even a timely dose of stimulus — say, a tax cut early in 1992 — would not have made much difference. They argue that the economic rules have changed, that the humongous budget deficits and other structural weaknesses inherited from the 1980’s — everything from the savings and loan debacle to the real estate bust — have blunted the impact of traditional policy weapons.</br></br>Worse, perhaps, from Mr. Bush's perspective, four years of economic wallow have undermined the public’s confidence that all bad things must come to an end. And this collective gloom could prove self-fulfilling, as both consumers and businesses hunker down for survival in the frosty economic climate of the 90’s.</br></br>Yes, there really is a recovery out there somewhere. Production has been edging up since the spring of 1991, and almost every forecaster is predicting 3 percent annual growth through 1993. | negative | 108929603 | yes | 3.5 | train | 4.0 | 132 |
SAWYER DECLARES HE SEES NO SLUMP: Layoffs and Living Cost Fall Should Bring No Alarm, the Secretary Says in St. Louis. ST. LOUIS. Feb. 7—Recent increases in unemployment and the drop in the cost of living "does not in any sense mean-we are headed for a depression,” Charles Sawyer, Secretary of Commerce, said today- “We are going through a period of some readjustment but certainly there is no cause for alarm,” he told a press conference. He spoke tonight on “Government’s Obligation to Business,” before the thirtieth annual meeting of the Mississippi Valley Association.</br></br>While the cost of living had dropped, he said, there had not been a substantial reduction yet He attributed the trend to a reduction in the cost of farm and textile products and a general moving toward a balance between supply and demand.</br></br>The recent upswing in unemployment was traceable in part to seasonal lay-offs, a meeting of consumer demands in some fields, and generally, less money available. There was still "a tremendous pent-up demand,” Mr. Sawyer said; and he pointed to housing, military needs, European demand and the normal expansion of the American economy under a growing population as assurance that there would be no serious recession in the near future.</br></br>The secretary told the 700 delegates from twenty-three states in his address tonight that “the Federal Government has no fixed and final points of view regarding the means by which our river basins should be developed.”</br></br>This was interesting to the delegates since President Truman has favored a Columbia Valley Authority and a Missouri Valley Authority, although he has not pushed the latter, | negative | 105776727 | yes | 4.0 | train | 4.0 | 133 |
INVESTING: A Refuge From the Recession. In the early days of 1980, inflation hedge stocks were all the rage on Wall Street and investors snapped up companies with assets in the ground — oil, natural gas, precious metals, trees — whatever promised growth equal to or exceeding the Drice SDiral.</br></br>Now, however, recession is the catchword and strategies have turned defensive. With the expectations of shrinking profits and a long dry spell in economic growth, the question is one of survival, or of relative strength in a weak business environment.</br></br>Even rising earnings during a recession won’t necessarily mean a rising price for a given stock, of course. The market collapse of 1973-74 provided a severe object lesson on that score. The rationale, then, is to simply choose the most seaworthy boat around and batten down the hatches for the duration, hoping to make headway in the near future but counting on emerging from the storm in good condition.</br></br>Timing, as always, is a critical element in placing one’s bets, and in some groups of stocks, the best time to jump may already be past.</br></br>“In a sense, we've already witnessed the first wave of opportunity — the purchase of such interest-sensitive issues as electric utilities, telephone companies and regional banks,” noted William G. Garrison, who heads a New York asset management firm bearing his name. “One can make a case that the major gains for these groups already have been made." | negative | 121402146 | yes | 3.3333333333333335 | train | 3.0 | 134 |
Stocks Show Largest Gain in Two Months -- Discount Rate Is Reduced. The stock market followed a familiar pattern last week. Stocks moved irregularly early in the period, then turned firmer as the week ended. It was apparent, however, from the moderate volume of trading, that traders were waiting, for some decisive development before extending their commitments.</br></br>That development occurred on* Thursday after* the market closed when, four of the twelve banks in the Federal Reserve System were permitted to cut their discount (lending) rates. A' fifth followed suit on Friday. This gave the stock market its biggest lift of the week. On Friday,The New York’Times combined average of fifty stocks gained 2.74 points to close at 353.86. This brought the net gain for the week to 6.74 points, the largest advance since the trading week ended on June 11. For the month to date, the index shows a gain of 4.62 points.</br></br>The cut in the discount rate from 3V2 per cent to 3 per cent came as somewhat of a surprise. It had not been widely expected that such action would be taken so soon following a reduction in the' rate early in June. Wall Street had expected a cut in the prime rate, that iwhich banks charge their big-[gest and soundest borrowers, i This stands at 5 per cent, unchanged since last September. However, it is considered only a matter of time before the prime rate is adjusted in line with the general easing in other money costs.</br></br>Early in the week the Federal Reserve, in a move to ease money, reduced bank reserve requirements. This failed then to have any noticeable effect on stock prices. But the loosening of credit made .possible by cutting banks’ required reserves may, when it becomes effective at the end of this month, act as a stimulus to the faltering business structure.</br></br>• The Federal Reserve said it would permit, a reduction of reserve requirements on Aug. 25 by country banks—those outside of central reserve and reserve city areas—and on Sept. | positive | 115178899 | yes | 6.5 | train | 6.0 | 135 |
CREDIT MARKETS: Analysts Reassess Outlook for Rates Reassessing the Outlook 'A Fairly Good Washout' Some Analysts Still Optimistic. The credit markets, which had marched confidently ahead for five straight weeks, became confused late last week after the Federal Reserve reported a record surge in the money sup. ply and a strong gain in industrial production in May. After the figures were released, the debate over the outlook for interest rates seemed to get louder, but not clearer.</br></br>Now the credit markets are searching for a sense of direction, and many traders and analysts hope they will find it this week as the Government sells securities and releases important economic statistics over the next four .days. Housing starts are scheduled for release today; personal income tomorrow; gross national product and corporate profits Wednesday, and durable goods on Thursday.</br></br>A month ago, the Government reported that durable goods orders in April showed their largest drop in 11 years, and the news did much to extend the credit market’s advance. Fixed-in-come prices continued to rise with almost no interruption until late last week when they began to sense-a large increase in the money supply. Reassessing the Outlook</br></br>After the Federal Reserve disclosed that the nation’s basic money supply jumped $6.9 billion in the week ended June 6, money-market economists began to reassess the outlook. Some who had begun to think that the Fed could soon start to encourage a decline in short-term interest rates became much less certain. Other economists, who had viewed the bond market’s remarkable late-spring rally as an aberration in a fundamental trend toward higher rates, remained steadfast in their bearish views. Still others remained convinced that interest rates had definitely peaked.</br></br>By Friday evening, no consensus on the outlook had emerged, although the Morgan Guaranty Trust Company suggested that the conflict between signs of economic slowdown, rapid growth in the money supply and inflationary | positive | 120792608 | yes | 6.0 | train | 6.0 | 136 |
STOCKS & BONDS: Shares Edge Higher as Fed Says Economy Is Expanding. DJIA 10,635.25 A 57.50 DOLLAR 132.05 yen A 0.72 GOLD (N.Y.) 5203.20 ▲ 1.20 NIKKEI225 11,792.82 A 294.44</br></br>Slocks rose modestly yesterday as the Federal Reserve, In a widely expected move, provided on assessment of the nation’s economy that gave Investors further reason to believe that a rebound Is under way.</br></br>The Fed held firm on Interest rates (or a second time, leaving the benchmark federal funds rate unchanged at 1.75 percent, Its lowest level in four decades. But ending Its stance toward lowering rates, the Fed's policy makers said the economy, "bolstered by a marked swing In Inventory Investment, is expanding at a significant pace.” Still, the policy makers said an Increase In demand remained “uncertain.”</br></br>The stock market, which had been trading moderately higher before the Fed’s announcement, gave up some of Its early gains after the Fed's announcement In midafternoon.</br></br>The Dow Jones Industrial average rose 57.50 points, or 0.5 percent, to 10,635.25. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite Index rose 3.81 points, or 0.2 percent, to 1,880.87. The broader Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index rose 4.74 points, or 0.4 percent, to 1,170.29. | negative | 92210046 | yes | 2.5 | train | 2.0 | 137 |
Nixon Veto of a Freeze Bill Would Not Surprise Shultz: Secretary, Joined by Butz and Dunlop, Asks Extension of Control Authority--Senate Rejects Ceiling, 39 to 37 Emotional Opposition' Beef' With Honor'. Secretary, Joined by Butz and Dunlop, Asks Extension of Control Authority —Senate Rejects Ceiling, 39 to 37</br></br>Secretary of the Treasury George P. Shultz said today he -wouldn't be surprised" if President Nixon vetoed any legislation that would freeze prices, rents and interest rates, and urged Congress simply to, extend the President’s existing economic control authority.</br></br>-Mr. Shultz made his qualified prediction—it was hedged with the comment that he had learned "never to prejudge the President’s decision” — before the House Banking and Currency Committee, 20 of whose members, all Democrats, have co-sponsored just such a bill.</br></br>He was joined in his strong support for "a simple extension without amendments” by two other Administration officials who appeared with him before the committee — Secretary of Agriculture Earl L. Butz and John T. Dunlop, the director of the Cost of Living Council, of which Mr. Shultz is also the chairman.</br></br>The committee will go into executive session tomorrow morning to work on the bill it will present on the floor of the House. The measure, to which the Administration is opposed, is co-sponsored by, among others, Representative Wright Patman, the Texas Democrat who is the committee’s chairman. | negative | 119647018 | yes | 2.6666666666666665 | train | 3.0 | 138 |
Recession Tightens Grip On State Tax Revenues. The recession can now claim another troublesome record: state tax collections shrank at the end of 2009 for a fifth consecutive quarter, the longest period of continuing state revenue declines since at least the Great Depression, according to a new report.</br></br>Over all, state tax collections fell to $134.5 billion in the last quarter of 2009, a 4.1 percent drop from the $140.2 billion collected during the same period a year earlier, according to the report, which will be released Tuesday by the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government.</br></br>While the drop .in tax-collections was less severe than earlier in the year — the record for the steepest drop was set last spring when tax collections fell by 16.6 percent compared with the same period in 2008 — the continuing declines are putting even more stress on states.</br></br>The revenue decline comes despite the tax increases imposed by many states since the recession began. With less tax money coming into state treasuries and expenses for programs like Medicaid continuing to mount, many states will probably be forced to consider further tax increases, spending cuts and layoffs — actions that some economists warn could put a drag on the nation’s fragile economic recovery.</br></br>26.9 percent decline compared with the same period the previous year, followed by Arizona, which reported a 17.1 percent drop. Seven states reported growth in revenues, but the report notes that the gains “were often driven by legislated tax increases rather than growth in the economy and tax base." growth soon, particularly in sales tax collections as retail sales rebound, but warns that state tax % revenue will likely remain below its pre-recession peak "for quite some time.” | negative | 1461190952 | yes | 3.0 | train | 3.0 | 139 |
Market Place: Gauging Level Of Confidence. XX/HEN a group of reporters ” met with officials of a leading brokerage-house last week to compare predictions made last year, as to where the stock market would be today, it turrifed-out that the reporters’. best guesses were far closer to the mark than those of. the brokers; -</br></br>The brokers were far too bullish. Even the most pessimistic among them missed by a country 'mile. This- is -not to tout the judgment of the reporters but to question whether brokers can make a reasonably impartial judgment about something so dear to their pocketbooks: " ^For Wall Street thrives on optimism. Bearishness is an unnatural state of mind on lower Broadway. Short sellers constitute a minority group. ;■</br></br>So one wonders whether the battered little guys—or the pros, for that matter-r-should trust the cautious optimism that seems to pervade the Street these days; Everyone hopes the optimism will be justified, of course, but consider this: ,, A respected polling agency, Sindlinger & Co. of Norwood,. Pa., says executives have no confidence in the stock market at this time.</br></br>executives account for 60 per cent of all trading and that their investment activity’, therefore, exerts a strong' influence on the direction of stock prices. When these managers, proprietors and officials occupying key positions in business and Government are optimistic about the economic outlook—as they consistently were for most of the last decade—they invest heavily.</br></br>Sindlinger conducted national surveys in United States households and found that the level of consumer . confidence among the male executive stock owners ranged from 70 to close to 90 per cent throughout 1963 up to the early part of last year. The level of their confidence reached a peak of 88 per cent in February, 1969. | positive | 119044151 | yes | 6.0 | train | 6.0 | 140 |
CRITICISM VOICED ON STOCK OPTIONS: But Few Companies Seek to Restrict Their Plans CRITICISM VOICED ON STOCK OPTIONS. Stung by their losses in thei stock market last year, some stockholders are becoming increasingly critical of stock option plans arid they are making themselves heard at company meetings. •</br></br>Meanwhile, President Kennedy has asked Congress to eliminate tax advantages of option plans, and it is considered likely that the House Ways and Means Committee will recommend some limits, although not all the President has asked.</br></br>The criticism at one company meeting last week resulted in a notable victory for the dissident stockholders.</br></br>Led by Patterson Branch, a Richmond, Va., broker, stockholders of the General Baking Company defeated a management - sponsored option plan amendment that would have increased shares available to executives to 150,000 from 100,-000, or nearly 10 per cent of the 1,579,005 shares outstanding.</br></br>Mr. Branch carried the vote by more than 87,000 shares. He had pointed out in a proxy solicitation that top executives would have been able to purchase 30,000 shares of common stock at $5.35 a share or 95 per cent of the 20-year low of $5.50.; • | negative | 116353911 | yes | 4.0 | train | 4.0 | 141 |
MARKETS: A Late Rally After a Bad Week. The script for the stock market remained the same for most of last week. There were the same familiar worries of investors over the economic impact of the coal strike, rising interest rates and a jittery United States dollar in foreign-exchange dealings. One result was a continuing string of daily declines in stocK prices and successive new 34-month lows for the Dow Jones industrial average. On Friday, however, hopes for a settlement of the coal strike and encouraging figures in the nation’s latest money-supply report sent ' stock prices ahead in a brisk rally.</br></br>Finishing Friday at 756.24, the market's leading barometer showed a gain of 3.555 points for the week. This followed a decline of more than 23 points in the previous week and meant that the Dow has dropped approximately 10 percent so far in 1978 after tumbling 17 percent last year. “To be perfectly honest,” one Wall Street broker summed up, "about the most polite thing I can say about this market is that it’s boring.”</br></br>What happened to the stock of Marshall Field on Wednesday certainly was not boring. Carter Hawley Hale Stores withdrew its acquisition offer for the big Chicago-based retail chain and in one day the price of Marshall Field stock plunged 8% points to 19%. Recently it had traded as high as 35% as traders and arbitragers bid up the price of Marshall Field in expectation of reaping profits. What they ended up with instead, as last week ended, were substantial losses— real or potential.</br></br>Volume on the New York Stock Exchange for the week's four trading sessions (George Washington’s Birthday was observed as a holiday on Monday) totaled 81.55 million shares, compared with the preceding week’s 97.52 million shares.</br></br>In the fixed-income sector, yields on Treasury and Federal agency securities climbed last week to their highest levels in two and a half years. | negative | 123799923 | yes | 3.0 | train | 3.0 | 142 |
With Fierce Competition for Homes, Minutes to Spend Millions: In Manhattan, now even rich buyers are under a seller's spell. For Manhattan Home Buyers, Minutes to Spend Millions. A few weeks before the stock market surged past 8,000 for the first time, James and Tiffany Palmer ventured into the Manhattan Peal-estate market with a modest goal: an extra bedroom for Whitney, their newborn daughter.</br></br>The couple saw little reason to worry. She is a lawyer at a white-shoe firm, he is a stockbroker. Both not yet 30, they were a poster couple for the city’s booming economy. And yet from their first meeting with a nervous real-estate agent in May, they saw they might as well have been shopping for blue-period Picassos.</br></br>“The broker just came right out and said: ‘I only have six apartments,’ ’’ Mr. Palmer, 29, recalled. “I said, ‘Can you do a check?’</br></br>It was a cold dose of reality, even on the Upper East Side, for a couple reluctantly willing to spend half a million dollars for two bedrooms. But the Palmers’ story — one of bidding wars, lost apartments, hard dealing and jangled nerves — is not among the worst these days.</br></br>Manhattan apartment prices, which had been climbing steadily out of a six-year slump, have now begun to slingshot skyward in many neighborhoods, brokers say. And buying an apartment has once again become a singular New York ordeal. | negative | 109787936 | yes | 3.0 | train | 3.0 | 143 |
In Stamford, Whitney Offers Diversity of Faces and Figures. “Tikal,” left, an enamel on wood . by Tom Burck-hardt, and “Woman With Dog,” right, a work in polyvinyl, poly-chromed in acrylic, with mixed media by Duane Hanson.</br></br>THE show at the Whitney Museum’s Fairfield County branch in Stamford comes from the museum’s gallery at Federal Reserve Plaza in lower Manhattan, where it was organized by Kathleen Monaghan, director of the Whitney at the Equitable Center, in midtown. Its title is “Image and Likeness,” and its contents are 22 figural paintings and sculptures drawn from the permanent collection at the Whitney’s home in uptown Manhattan.</br></br>God made man in His own image, but since then, the meaning of the word “image” has changed. No longer a likeness, it is something constructed by an artist (or a public relations firm). As Ms. Monaghan proposes in her brochure essay, the change was brought about by the introduction of photography. Freed by the new medium from the "dictates of objective realism,” artists, she says, “turned to issues of formal interpretation, a shift that reflected the rise of Modernism.” Or was one of its causes.</br></br>Painters were hardly rebelling against the constraints of realism before the camera arrived, but many were happy to use it as a shortcut to representation. Still, art aided by photography was looked down upon until the mid-20th century, when, quite suddenly, it became acceptable, and the term "photographic" was no longer a slur.</br></br>While there are more images than likenesses in the show, the most imposing of the works is a likeness in all respects save size. It is the 9-by-7-foot photograph of the composer Philip Glass, airbrushed on canvas by Chuck Close. Until recently, the giant portrait in Western art was the perquisite of despots, but now, the power it bespeaks is that of advertising. This 1969 example, in black and white, looks like a billboard awaiting the addition of a brand name. Mr. Close has been regarded as a Minimalist for his dispassionate way of mapping faces, yet he seems very much out of Photo-Realism and, hence, out of Pop. | negative | 108800421 | yes | 3.0 | train | 3.0 | 144 |
Notes and Bonds Rise Modestly: Investors Await Employment Data. Prices of Treasury notes and bonds rose modestly yesterday, as lower oil prices continued to make investors and speculators wonder whether the inflation rate may be lower than previously expected.</br></br>"There’s no disputing that lower oil prices reduce inflation and help bond prices, but there is lots of skepticism about how low prices will go and how long the declines will last,” said one securities dealer who asked not to be identified.</br></br>Analysts added that demand from investors and speculators was subdued because of worries that employment statistics for September, which are scheduled for release on Friday, could show a large rise in nonfarm payrolls, which could depress note and bond prices.</br></br>By late yesterday, the closely watched 9i/8 percent Treasury bond due in 2018 was offered at 101 25/32, up slightly more than point, to yield 8.95 percent. The closing New York price was near the high of the day, and coincided with a decline in the November crude oil futures contract to $13.06, down 31 cents. On Friday, the oil futures contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell 55 cents and bond prices rose about % point.</br></br>Treasury bill rates were little changed at the regular weekly auctions. The new three-month issue sold at 7.23 percent, unchanged from a week ago, while the six-month average rate was 7.46 percent, down from 7.48 percent. | negative | 110405450 | yes | 3.5 | train | 4.0 | 145 |
New Officers Elected. DETROIT, Mich., Sept. 29—A further minor firming of interest rates in the near future was predicted here today by Dr. Marcus Nadler of New York University. A speaker at the closing sessions of the seventy-fourth annual convention of the American Bankers Association, Dr. Nadler, who is Professor of Finance at the university, made the prediction and added the warning that bankers should exercise increasing-caution in granting loans under current conditions.</br></br>Evans Woollen Jr., chairman of the Fletcher Trust Company, Indianapolis, Ind., was elected president of the association at the final ■business meeting, succeeding Joseph M. Dodge, president of the Detroit Bank, of this city. Also elected was F. Raymond Peterson, chairman of the First Paterson National Bpnk and Trust Company, Paterson, N. J., who was elected vice president. The association also voted^ to hold its 1949 convention in San Francisco, Calif.</br></br>Dr. Nadler, while predicting a further rise in interest rates, emphasized that it would be of "minor” degree.</br></br>"A repetition in the money market of what took place in 1920,” he explained, “is out of the question and cannot happen if for no other reason that the position of the Treasury and the certainty that drastic credit control would convert the present prosperity into a serious depression.”</br></br>The increase in rates, Dr. Nadler said, would probably assume the following pattern: A further rise in the rate of return on shortterm Government obligations fol-| lowed by an increase in the discount rate and a further rise in the i "over-the-counter” rate. It is likely, he said, that there will also de-i velop an increase in the yield on I long-term AAA corporate bonds as well as state and municipal obligations, while "the time is not far off when long-term AAA corporate obligations will sell to yield 3 per cent or better.” | positive | 108293066 | yes | 7.5 | train | 8.0 | 146 |
ELECTION PLACING FOCUS ON THE ISSUE OF JOBS VS. WAGES: TWO PARTIES ARE DIVIDED Economists Say Stagnation in Pay May Be Key Problem for the Next President By LOUIS UCHITELLE Creation of Jobs vs. Growth in Wages Is Issue in the Campaign, and Beyond The standard of living for millions has been stalled for 15 years.. The Presidential election campaign is focusing attention on two trends that many economists have trouble reconciling: While the nation’s economy has demonstrated a spectacular ability to create plenty of jobs, wages generally have not kept up with inflation.</br></br>Vice President Bush, talking of “job opportunity for all Americans,” emphasizes the increase in the number of jobs in the Reagan years. Michael S. Dukakis, calling for "good jobs at good wages,” mentions wage stagnation, saying many of the nation’s existing jobs do not pay enough.</br></br>But beyond calling for greater efforts at education, neither candidate has attempted to deal in great detail with wage stagnation, which economists say could become a far more important problem for the next President.</br></br>Entrenched Weakness The weakness in wages is so entrenched that it could endure into the 1990’s, no matter who becomes President. “The question today is whether we should be worrying about creating millions of new jobs at present wages or fewer new jobs but at better wages,” said Frank Levy, a labor economist at the University of Maryland.</br></br>While 30 million new jobs have been created in the last 15 years, increasing the work force by 25 percent, to 115 million people, Census Bureau data released last week show that the median pay of most American workers is the same today as in 1973 after adjustments to account for inflation. | negative | 110495749 | yes | 4.0 | train | 4.0 | 147 |
Fed to Reveal Its Strategy For Raising Interest Rates. WASHINGTON — Ben S. Bernanke, having survived a surprising challenge to his second term as Federal Reserve chairman, now faces the delicate task of beginning to pull the central bank out of its extraordinary effort to prop up the economy.</br></br>The main question is when and how the Fed should start raising short-term interest rates, which have been at a record low for more than a year. Related is the issue of how to manage, and eventually shrink, the record S2.2 trillion balance sheet that the Fed amassed as it pumped vast sums of money into the economy, starting in 2008. On Wednesday morning, the Fed will release a statement outlining Mr. Bernanke’s views on moving away from its exceptionally easy monetary policy.</br></br>As a policy tool, Mr. Bernanke is expected to consider a little-known mechanism — referred to as the interest rate on excess reserves — that gives the Fed leverage over $1.1 trillion in bank deposits.</br></br>Most of those deposits were created as the Fed gobbled up mortgage-backed securities and Treasury notes and bonds during the financial crisis. The banks in turn parked the funds at the* Fed as reserves. In the months and years ahead, the Fed wants to make siire that banks do not reduce their reserves too quickly, because it could create inflationary pressures as banks step up their lending.</br></br>To achieve its goal, according to Fed officials and speeches, the central bank will raise the interest rate on excess reserves, now 0.25 percent. It also plans to lift its target for the fed funds rate — what banks charge one another for | negative | 1458374493 | yes | 3.5 | train | 4.0 | 148 |
20.57 Drop Puts Dow At 2,701.85: I.B.M.'s Decline Is a Key Factor Dow Retreats 20.57; I.B.M. a Factor. Two leading New England banks plan to merge in a deal that would create the 21st-largest banking company in the United States. Shareholders in both Hartford National and Shawmut of Boston will get stock in a new company, to be named Shawmut National. Analysts concluded that Hartford National was the acquirer in the deal, which will combine two banks that have focused on business lending into one concern with about $25 billion in assets. [Page Dl.] by BankAmerica. The apparent success of the financing is a significant step by BankAmerica to restore capital depleted by years of losses from bad loans. But even with the financing and a recent offering of three-year notes, BankAmerica - a long way to go in building the capital crucial to rapid growth. |ul.]</br></br>Lufthansa may try to buy Hilton International from Allegis. Although the German airline is the first company to announce an interest in the hotel chain, many others are believed to be exploring the possibility of making bids. Allegis said only that it still intended to dispose of Hilton International and the Hertz car-rental business by thefall, in response to takeover pressures. [Dl.]</br></br>Trans-Resources’ plan to acquire Fermenta collapsed when a bank that is a major shareholder of the big Swedish biotechnology group rejected the offer as inadequate. |D3.[</br></br>Rosewood Financial has sold almost all of the nearly three million shares it held in Phillips-Van Heusen. [D3.]</br></br>Prices of oil futures rose sharply after Saudi Arabia staged an anti-Iranian news conference. The tough talk caused markets to focus anew on the prospect of interference in oil supplies that are sent through the Persian Gulf. Any blowup between the Iranians and the Saudis, traders said, could go far to impede shipping. But analysts predicted that OPEC’s oil ministers would face a challenge trying to restabilize prices when they gather for a series of meetings in the next few weeks. [Dl.] | negative | 110754108 | yes | 4.0 | train | 4.0 | 149 |
A Sin And A Shame. The treatment of workers by American corporations has been Worse — far more treacherous — than most of the population realizes. There was no need for so many men and women to be forced out of their jobs in the downturn known as the great recession.</br></br>Many of those workers were cashiered for no reason other than outright greed by corporate managers. And that cruel, irresponsible, shortsighted policy lias resulted in widespread human suffering and is doing great harm to the economy.</br></br>'Tve never seen anything like this," said Andrew Sum, an economics professor and director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston. "Not only did they throw ail these people off the payrolls, they also cut back on the hours of the people who stayed on the job."</br></br>As Professor Sum studied the data coming In from the recession, he realized that the carnage that occurred in the workplace was out of proportion to the economic hit that corporations were taking. Willie no one questions tile severity of the downturn — the worst of the entire post-World War tl period — the economic data show that workers to a great extent were shamefully exploited.</br></br>The recession officially started in December 2007. From the fourth quarter of 2007 to the fourth quarter of 2009, real aggregate output in the U.S., as measured by the gross domestic product, fell by about 2.5 percent. But employers cut their payrolls by 6 percent | negative | 1461129372 | yes | 2.6666666666666665 | train | 3.0 | 150 |
BOND PRICES GAIN IN HEAVY TRADING: Burns Hopes for Decline in Long-Term Rates Credit Markets: Prices for Bonds Show a Gain. With Arthur F. Burns, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, saying he hopes for a decline in long-term interest rtes, tlie bond market advanced yesterday while handling a, heavy volume of financing. ! "It’s just groovy,” one corporate-bond trader remarked; happily late yesterday after-1 noon. "Everything is going back, to par again. Interest rates arcj coming down."</br></br>In this more optimistic set-| ting, which contrasted markedly’ with the market's gray mood recently after almost four weeks of declining prices, there were these major developments: <JThe Shell Oil Company’s $200-miilion of debentures to be sold today by a Morgan Stanley group were given a 7*4 par cent interest rate and priced at 100.</br></br>•iThe Port of New York Authority's $150-million of 35-yearj revenue bonds were priced to! yield 5.90 per cent, tax-free, and they sold slowly to investors.</br></br>995,000 issue of Aaa-rated tax-exempt bonds that were priced to yield as much as 20/-I00ths of a percentage point less than the similarly rated Texas bonds sold eight days earlier. Even so, the bonds sold quickly, mostly to investors in the state.</br></br>•ITreasury bill prices dipped in a response to the Government’s announcement that it was increasing the size of its weekly bill auctions to $4.2-billion from $3.9-billion, and then they recovered. At the close of trading, bill prices | positive | 119445247 | yes | 6.333333333333333 | train | 6.0 | 151 |
EASING OF MONEY SEEN: Reserve Action Is Held Likely to Help Treasury Issue. ! The dominant position of the [Federal Reserve System when ex-jercising its orthodox powers is be-(ing demonstrated in the money 'market. Federal funds, the money iwhich banks borrow to meet their ; reserve requirements, have been .quoted ten weeks at l’/i per cent or higher. This has been the longest tight period in the money mar-•ket since just prior to the banking holiday in 1933.</br></br>I Acting to keep a rein on infla-! tionary forces, the Federal Reserve has maintained a policy of I keeping the market tight by restricting bank credit through pressure on reserves. Tomorrow, however, the United States Treasury has scheduled an offering of</br></br>S3.500,000.000 of its bank-eligible bonds and the banks will need funds to buy these securities. Under the circumstances, it may be expected that the Federal Reserve ■ will ease the pressure somewhat, i Banks Can Create Money A The banks, of course, can “create” 1 money, especially since the terms of the Treasury offering permit them to pay for the bonds by crediting the Treasury tax and loan accounts which they hold. By1</br></br>5100,000,000 of bonds, for example, by merely increasing their tax and loan deposits by a like amount. In doing so they need provide only $24,000,000 in additional reserves, under the 24 per cent reserve re-jquirement in effect here and in Chicago. Elsewhere, the percent-jage of required reserves is lower. Later, the Treasury will draw i upon its tax and loan accounts through "03113" on the banks, but these are usually for only a portion of the balances and the withdrawal is spread over weeks. In addition, when the Treasury issues a 20 per cent call, say, its purpose is to spend the money in payment1 for Government expenditures, and the money finds its way back to the banks in the form of deposits by their industrial and other customers. Hence, these dollars, originally created to purchase Government bonds, become permanent additions to the country’s money supply.</br></br>The key question for the banks, however, is to obtain the necessary reserves, which, on the basis of the tight money market of the past ten weeks, they do not have. One [possibility is that they may bor-jrow directly from the Federal Re-i serve Banks, but the Federal Reserve, of course, does have the power to lower requirements, but such action seems unlikely. | negative | 112256319 | yes | 4.0 | train | 4.0 | 152 |
A $6 Billion Hole In Albany's Pocket Is Expected to Grow. ALBANY, Dec. 1 — With stale spending sharply outpacing revenues, New York faces a budget deficit of at least $6 billion in its $100 billion budget for the next fiscal year, according to the Pataki administration, a problem made worse by the loss of billions of dollars in one-shot sources of cash.</br></br>The state’s budget situation became even more precarious this week, with a court-appointed panel's ruling on Tuesday that an additional $5.6 billion a year must be spent to improve New York City schools.</br></br>While the panel did not specify how much of the money should come from Albany, the state's portion of the bill is likely to double or triple while the spending is phased in over four years. And the state could end up having to increase spending on schools statewide by $1 billion to $2 billion or more as other districts demand corresponding increases in aid.</br></br>Compounding Albany's problems are demands that the state increase aid to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to prevent drastic service cuts and fare increases that are to be voted on this month. And the state will soon have to figure out how to pay for a $4.5 billion health care program that was essentially pushed off the stale budget and fed with pots of money from cigarette taxes, hospital surcharges and $1.2 billion from the conversion of Empire IJluc Cross and Blue Shield into a for-profit company, among other things. The law that set up that spending arrangement expires in June.</br></br>Gov. George If.. Pataki is to deliver his budget plan next month for the fiscal year that begins in April, and lie has not signaled how he plans to close the gap. | negative | 92776683 | yes | 4.0 | train | 4.0 | 153 |
ALBANY REJECTS BUDGET REQUEST FOR SUBWAY AID: BARS USING RAIL SURPLUS Legislative Plan Would Require New York City to Raise an Additional $25 Million NEW YORK STATE Lawmakers Refuse Relief On Transit Budget Deficit. ALBANY, March 11 — Legislative leaders dealt New York City a major setback today by proposing that the city, and not suburban railroads, provide much of the revenue to help close the Transit Authority’s budget deficit | and keep the fare at $1.25 this year.</br></br>The agreement reflected successful maneuvering by suburban Republican legislators, who had balked at efforts to : transfer a $90 million surplus from the commuter railroads to the city’s transit system. While city legislators had supported such a shift, they accepted today’s agreement after threats that the failure to reach an accord could force an election-year fare increase for transit riders.</br></br>The deal, which Gov. Mario M. Cuomo has yet to agree to, would force the city to pay $25 million more than it had budgeted in order to avoid another fare increase this year. In addition, the city would have to pay $100 million more than anticipated for the transit system’s capital improvement plan next year.</br></br>City officials complained that the agreement relied on one-shot accounting gimmicks to close the deficit. "All this means is that you’re saddling the rider next year with at least a 10-cent increase, possibly a 15-cent increase,” said Barbara J. Fife, Deputy Mayor for Planning and Development. “This is a plan that uses blue paste and rubber bands to hold the fare to $1.25 through</br></br>The agreement came after intense maneuvering over how to find $166.5 million to close a deficit in the Transit Authority’s 1992 budget — a shortfall that officials had warned might drive the fare up to $1.40 this year. When the fare was raised to $1.25 on Jan. 1, officials left unresolved the details of how the authority’s deficit would be eliminated. | negative | 109033126 | yes | 3.0 | train | 3.0 | 154 |
WARTIME AIDES HAIL PAY FREEZE: But Express Uncertainty On Effect of Nixon's Action. WASHINGTON, Aug. 16-Administrators of wartime price and wage control programs welcomed President Nixon's 90-day price-wage freeze today but expressed uncertainty over how effective it might be in curbing inflation.</br></br>“The crucial thing is what comes after 90 days,” said George W. Taylor, who helped control wages in World War II as vice chairman of the War Labor Board.</br></br>A similar view of the potential impact on prices was voiced by Michael V. DiSalle, administrator of the Office of Price Stabilization in the Korean War.</br></br>Mr. Taylor, Mr. DiSalle and others were interviewed by telephone, and the apparent consensus was that the freeze would dampen inflationary forces to some extent.</br></br>“It may be a little late, but not too late, I hope,” said Paul A. Porter, deputy admin-j istrator of the Office of Price. Administration in World Wari II. | negative | 119219253 | yes | 4.0 | train | 4.0 | 155 |
TAX CUT DECISION BY WHITE HOUSE LIKELY IN AUGUST: Administration Awaits July Reports Before Assessing Strength of the Economy CONGRESS IS A FACTOR Bill for Reduction Could Be Imperiled by Opposition of Ways and Means Head TAX CUT DECISION LIKELY IN AUGUST. WASHINGTON, July 19— The Administration expects to decide early next month whether to seek an emergency anti-recession cut in Federal income taxes.</br></br>A highly placed source said today that the economic indicators needed as a basis for the decision would be available about Aug. 10. If the Administration reads them as evidence of a downward trend in the economy, or perhaps even as a leveling off. he said, a tax reduction is likely to be proposed.</br></br>The main indexes being awaited include July figures on employment and unemployment, industrial production, retail sales, average factory hours, new construction and manufacturers’ sales, inventories and new orders.</br></br>The possibility arose, meanwhile, that the House Ways and Means Committee would hold public hearings early in August on the economy. The! hearings would be pegged to the possible need of an emergency income tax cut to stimulate the economy.</br></br>Aside from its reading of the economic situation, the Administration’s decision on a tax cut hinges largely on the attitude of key Democrats in Congress — notably Representative Wilbur D. Mills of Arkansas, Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. Unless Mr. Mills can be persuaded to sponsor and manage the bill, it was said, the Administration is unlikely to propose such legislation. | negative | 116132325 | yes | 4.0 | train | 4.0 | 156 |
THE FINANCIAL WEEK: Securities Markets Have Technical Correction After Nine-Week Climb -- Uncertainty Still Prevails. After nine weeks of advancing prices, the stock market had its first real correction last week. Although the profit-taking was healthy for the technical position of the market, it.also reflected uncertainty on the outcome of the steel-wage discussions, Congressional action on new legislation and coming developments in the international monetary situation.</br></br>The fact that the market reached its highest point since last November, in a steady climb since mid-June, invited profit-taking. Prices eased steadily until Thursday, when a somewhat firmer tone was evident. At no time, however, was the selling in the New York Stock Exchange pressing; volume fell well below a million shares daily. the New York times combined average.-for fifty stocks, which reached; ST-iJilgh of .119.40 on Aug.</br></br>18—it hmljclirnbed from 104.48 on June i4ijtrie,Vlow for the year to ate-^4iropptp toTl5.95 on Wednesday. This decline of 3.45 points in the average followed a gain of 14.92 points in the recovery movement.</br></br>While both union and management have presented their cases in general in the steel-wage case: before the President’s fact-finding1 committee and- the three-man board was scheduled to make its report by Tuesday, it now has been decided to continue hearings to the deadline with fhe board requesting permission to make its answer to the White House on Sept. 9..Meanwhile the strike deadline of Philip Murray’s steelworkers’ union remains at Sept. 14; the feeling is that sufficient time for 'settlement exists in the five-day interval. ., '</br></br>The hearings have brought out an "interesting” change in attitude on the part of labor with respect to the economic theory of expansion. Robert R. Nathan, economist, on whose studies the union’s case is based, said that one factor causing depressions was the tendency of industry to overexpand productive facilities in boom times rather than to share prosperity with employes. It was in February ! of this year that Philip Murray 'charged the steel industry was lacking sufficient steel-making capacity to “sustain a high level of prosperity and employment.” | negative | 105615209 | yes | 4.0 | train | 4.0 | 157 |
Credit Markets: Corporate Bonds Change Little. The corporate bond market, perhaps taking some perverse satisfaction in the stock market’s steep decline yesterday, stopped moving downward during the afternoon and recovered to close little changed from Monday.</br></br>There was no apparent reason for the reversal, but several major dealers noted a pickup in trading activity.</br></br>Government bond prices continued to drift lower as that sector of the fixed-income securities market waited for the Treasury’s current $5.1-billion refinancing operation to end.</br></br>Both new 7 per cent issues, trading on a when-issued basis, declined2/32,and no one seemed to want the issues maturing Aug. 15 for their rights value to participate in the refunding. The 4 per cent bonds that come due Aug. 15 were offered below par at the close of the market.</br></br>Short-term interest rates advanced. Nine-month and one-year Treasury bills, as well as Tennessee Valley Authority notes, were sold at the highest rates since last October, and the Federal National Mortgage Association lifted rates on its short-term notes. | negative | 119101216 | yes | 4.0 | train | 4.0 | 158 |
Dow Drops 28.27 After Fed's Move. NEW YORK (AP) — The New York Slock Exchange reported these odd lot transactions bv principal dealers for August 8: Purchases of 242,691 shares; sales of 486,375 shares including 8.986 shares sold short.</br></br>NEW YORK (AP) — NYSE large blocks were 2.946 vs 2,105 Monday. Total (s based on shares of 10,000 or more.</br></br>How $100 invested four weeks ago in a portfolio replicating each sub-index of the Standard ^ Poor's 500 would have fared through yesterday.</br></br>384.23— 3.43 387.80 393.52 392.45- 4.52 398.30 409.67' 166.07— 1.47 167.58 170.19 151.74— 1.73 153.97 158.68</br></br>SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) — The Wllshire Associates Equity Index, the market value of NYSE, American and OTC issues, was *2,657.734 billion Tuesday oil S31.759 billion or oil 1.18 percent from Monday. A year ago the index was *3,221.411 billion. | negative | 110474409 | yes | 3.5 | train | 4.0 | 159 |
For Many in Eastport, Me., Unemployment Is a Way of Life. There Is a railroad crossing in Eastport, Me., but no railroad. “As far as transportation goes,” says the City Manager, “we’re right at the end.”</br></br>EASTPORT. Me., April 22-While the rest of the country struggles to cope with the recession, it’s pretty much just another spring here in Eastport.</br></br>Not that things are going well for Eastport. Things haven’t really gone too well here for a long lime.</br></br>Most folks attribute it to the location. Eastport, the most eastern city in the United States, is just too far from everything, stuck nut. on the end of Moose Island, which is separated from the mainland by a causeway.</br></br>"Our problem down here has been geographical location more than anything else,” said Everett L. Baxter, the lean, laconic city manager. "As far as transportation goes, we’re right at the end." | negative | 120580200 | yes | 3.0 | train | 3.0 | 160 |
Fed Made $47.4 Billion in 2009 From Aiding Housing Market. WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve transferred S47.4 billion, a record sum, to the Treasury Department last year, a result of the central bank's actions to support the fragile housing market.</br></br>The transfer to the public coffers rose roughly 50 percent, or $15,7 billion, from $31.7 billion transferred in 2008, the Fed announced on Wednesday in releasing its annual financial statements, which were audited by Deloitte.</br></br>“Central banking is a great business,” joked Vincent Rf. Reinhart, a former director of monetary affairs at the Fed.</br></br>Unlike private banks, the Fed does not exist for the purpose of making a profit, though it inevitably does so. Historically, it paid no interest on the currency and bank reserves that represent its liabilities, while it made interest on the Treasury securities that make up its assets.</br></br>The Fed’s profitability increased as an incidental result of the financial turmoil that began in 2007. | negative | 1474448064 | yes | 2.6666666666666665 | train | 3.0 | 161 |
The Week in Finance: Stocks Decline for the First Time in Four Weeks Despite Good Forecasts. There was a sudden spate of forecasts that economic conditions would improve, but the market apparently decided to rest on its laurels—after marking up notable gains earlier this year.</br></br>Stock prices on the New York Stock Exchange sagged for the first time in four weeks. Trading was very heavy—soaring to more than 6,000,000 shares on Thursday—but investors to a large extent cashed in on their profits. Many observers said that the market was in a “consolidation phase."</br></br>The New York Times average of fifty representative stocks closed on Friday at 371.05, for a loss on the week of 6.64 points. The gain for 1961 thus far is 25.91 points. Optimism Voiced</br></br>Except for differences as to timing,- economists and Government officials were .optimistic about business recovery in the next few months. This was despite a rise in unemployment to the highest level in twenty years, a drop in installment credit extensions and; an unfavorable report on current business by purchasing agents for a broad spectrum of companies.</br></br>Economic intelligence, . like any other form of intelligence, depends- upon an interpretation of the signs. Secretary of Labor Arthur J. Goldberg believes they indicate that the economy may . start its upturn in April, following a ' ten-month lag Treasury Secretary - Douglas Dillon said that the Administration expected the, upturn to start in the second quarter. But the President’s Council of Economic Advisers said no rapid-recovery should be expected before mid-year. | negative | 115246985 | yes | 3.0 | train | 3.0 | 162 |
PAPERBACK TALK: PAPERBACK TALK. Capital reading. How’s business? Ask that question ot booksellers in most parts of-the country nowadays and you’re apt to see long faces and hear laments about inflation and high unemployment and the soaring cost of books.</br></br>Ask the question of a dealer in the metropolitan area of Washington, D.C. — an area whose book sales now rate fourth or fifth in the nation — and you’ll get quite different responses: q"Our business is inflation-proof,” says Doug Talley of the District News Co., supplier of mass-market paperbacks to newsstands, supermarkets and variety stores. ’’And, of course, sales will go up as spring brings the tourists.” *1“ Business is good, and we expect it to stay that way,” says Jim Tenney, owner of the Book Annex, whose three stores are richly stocked with special-interest and backlist titles.</br></br>^’’Business is very good,” says Robert M. Haft, president of Crown Books, a discount chain that has just opened its 29th store in the area. The reason for these high spirits Is, of course, the fact that Washington’s chief raison d’etre is politics and government, a way of life that has lured thousands of well-educated professionals — lawyers, Journalists, bureaucrats, lobbyists, foreign diplomats — to the city. They and their families are especially devoted to books, a love they can indulge because their per capita income is the highest in the nation.</br></br>The typical Washingtonian, like most of his countrymen, buys many more paperbacks than hardbacks — the ratio is more than three to one — but the titles he chooses aren’t average American. He’s particularly fond of nonfiction books about politics, national and international, past and present. Current favorites in capital bookstores Include Henry Kissinger’s “Years of Upheaval,” Joseph Alsop’s "FDR: A Centenary Remembrance,” Anthony Sampson's “The Money Lenders,” Robert Lacey’s “The Kingdom" and David Holden and Richard Johns's “The House of Saud.” Such accounts of Japanese ways of life as “The Art of Japanese Management,” “Theory Z" and “A Book of Five Rings” sell very well. Ballantine’s new Espio-nage/Intelligence Library has many fans.</br></br>The Washingtonian’s fascination with espionage and intrigue extends to the fiction he buys-. Booksellers have had great trouble getting enough copies of Robert Ludlum's new thriller, “The Parsifal Mosaic,” to satisfy the extraordinary demand. | positive | 121913931 | yes | 6.0 | train | 6.0 | 163 |
Some Call Fund Chief a Contradictory Man: Off Its Peak. Richard S. Strong;, chairman of Strong Financial Management, is being investigated by the New York attorney general, who accuses him of improper trading.</br></br>Richard S. Strong helped fuel the Investing boom of the 1980's and 1990’s, drawing individual investors into the stock market through mutual funds, and turning the firm he controls, the Strong Financial Corporation, into one of the nation's biggest mutual fund comDanies.</br></br>But now regulators say he may have been cheating investors by personally profiting from improper trades he made in and out of shares of his company's funds over the last few years.</br></br>Eliot Spitzer, the New York attorney general, is now preparing to take action against Mr. Strong, who Is considered a pioneer of the mutual fund industry. Hoping to reduce the fallout from the accusations, the Strong company issued a press release late yesterday saying that Mr. Strong, the company’s founder and chairman, would reimburse the Strong funds for any losses incurred because of his personal trades.</br></br>The company also said that it would create a more independent board and that it had hired David S. Ruder, a former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, to oversee more significant management and structural changes. | positive | 92610562 | yes | 7.0 | train | 7.0 | 164 |
25 BILLION TAX RISE VITAL, N.A.M. HEARS: Needed for Two Years to Curb Inflation, Pay for War, Brown of Johns-Manville Says Warns of Aid to Stalin NEW N.A.M. HEAD 25 BILLION TAX RISE VITAL, N.A.M. HEARS Plea for Equality of Sacrifice Manpower Director Heard. A leading- American industrialist advocated additional taxes of $25,-000.000,000 a year for the next two fiscal years yesterday to curb spiraling inflation and to pay for the partial war” the nation is now fisrhtiner.</br></br>Lewis H. Brown, chairman of the board of the Johns-Manville Corporation and a director of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, told the National Association of Manufacturers the tax burden was essential to avoid greater deficit financing.</br></br>Such deficit financing, he warned his audience of 3,000 industrialists, could nullify the effectiveness of America’s productive machine, inflate the dollar and thus wreck industry’s financial underpinnings.</br></br>Warns of Aid to Stalin At the same time, Mr. Brown said, such a course would play into Stalin’s hands because the Soviet dictator has often held with Lenin “that the way to destroy a capitalist country is to debauch its currency—to let inflation wreck the economy from within.”</br></br>The association, which is holding its fifty-fifth annual Congress of American Industry at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, also heard that the nation s manpower needs in this period of mobilization could be met, and that a pay-as-you-go taxation program was essential for national solvency and the “fiscal ordeal” that lies ahead. | negative | 111564722 | yes | 4.0 | train | 4.0 | 165 |
Reports on Business Throughout U.S.: New York Philadelphia Boston Chicago St. Louis Cleveland Richmond Atlanta Kansas City Minneapolis San Francisco Dallas. in the corresponding week of Department store sales by L ir rS. p!,! Federal Reserve districts, as re- cmcnn.t.</br></br>Of the twelve reporting areas sons with a year ago: seven were below the 1956 level, three had gains and two</br></br>Department store sales in the o'?!'2!.'.':!* New York metropolitan area °ct lit' iiir last week were unchanged from oct.' 26..127 volume for the corresponding Percent:</br></br>J955 Portland, Ore. Oct 1 126 Rochester ... . Oct! 8 MSS Salt Lake City Oct. 15. .128 S*n Antonio ... Oct 22 133 San Diego . ... Oct.' 29 126 San Francisco . inof Seattle ............... • a par with sales a year ago,' perhaps a shade under the 1956 levels. Temperatures have been too high for the movement of heavy wearing apparel. The annual Parade of Homes show, in which 100 new homes were exhibited, attracted more than 100,000 persons during the week. A number of the homes were sold. Montgomery Ward & Co. will open a full-line department store in a new shopping center in southern Kansas City. Business loans in the area have continued to contract. _</br></br>wear was still lagging, but sportswear was doing better Association of Commerce and Evidence of lessened economic than before. Industry has indicated. How- activity came in the bank loan There were few bright spots ever, optimism is tempered by statement. For the fifth consec-in the hard goods field. Furni- September figures, which utive week, commercial and | negative | 114305958 | yes | 3.0 | train | 3.0 | 166 |
Mild U.S. Recession Foreseen. PARIS, May 20 — The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development predicted today that the United States would have a relatively mild recession this year and that, as a result, the Western economies could survive the recent oil price increases better than had previously been expected.</br></br>The O.E.C.D. Secretariat, which monitors the economic health of the 24 member nations, all industrialized, said it expected the United States economy to contract by about five-tenths of</br></br>However, it added today that the downturn would have only a relatively mild impact on American inflation, which the O.E.C.D. expects to exceed 10 percent this year, although it will help end America’s three-year string of big payment deficits by pushing its external accounts lower and into balance with the level of incoming payments.</br></br>If the United States downturn is mild and other major economies experience slow growth — about 1.25 percent this year — the O.E.C.D. suggests, the world will avoid a downturn similar to the one it suffered after the big 1974 oil price rises.</br></br>Although the growth of 1.25 percent would be much slower than in the past and would imply a further rise in unemployment, it is still better than the zero or even negative growth the O.E.C.D. had feared at the start of the year, when oil prices were rising very rapidly. | negative | 121379629 | yes | 3.5 | train | 4.0 | 167 |
When the Downturn Sailed Into Savannah. A container ship passes through Savannah, Ga. The nations economic downturn has begun chipping away at expansion and prosperity in this port city, dimming a 20-year boom,</br></br>DOZIER COOK founded the construction crane company that bears his name here 35 years ago. He’s weathered economic scares over the years — Hie wrenching recessions of the mid-1970s and early '80s come to mind — and lie’s confident that the current downturn will be no worse. His words ring with optimism.</br></br>“We have people lined up to buy, and we are losing deals because we don't have enough cranes to sell to them," lie says, adding that even if the market “gels bad here, we sell cranes in Russia, Dubai, you name it.” “We are battening down the hatches and being cautious," lie says, ignoring his boss's frown. “Before the credit crunch we were not as cautious as we arc now. We want our bankers to know that. They would be spooked by anyone who showed too much optimism today.”</br></br>size cities like Savannah are contributing to an accelerating decline in the country’s gross domestic product. “You are seeing a fairly widespread recession, with all major components of demand now in decline,” said Brian Sack, an economist in Washington for Macroeconomic Advisers L.L.C., a consulting and forecasting firm. It expects the gross domestic product to decline in the fourth quarter at an annual rate of 4 percent, down sharply from the con-traction of 0.5 percent in the third quarter.</br></br>them. But four months ago, as economic shifts became more dramatic, he hired Mr. Briscoe, a 56-year-old former banker, to keep himself and his staff grounded in reality. In addition to a hiring freeze and other cost-cutting measures, Mr. Briscoe explained, the company has cut back sharply on the number of new cranes it will buy next year. It made that move largely at the direction of its bankers, who had grown leery of financing an expansion. | positive | 905061907 | yes | 8.0 | train | 8.0 | 168 |
Climbing Back: New York City First Hurdle: Defeatism. New Yorkers are losing heart. And it is no wonder that many fear their city is disintegrating. A huge budget deficit probably means dirtier streets, unkempt parks and shorter library hours. Almost a million New Yorkers are on welfare, supported by an ever-thinner base of taxpayers. Homeless mental cases huddle in corners everywhere, or beg aggressively- Drugs so ravage neighborhoods that desperate parents in the Bronx are driven to chain their daughter to a bed to save her from the streets. And every macho teen-ager seems to be packing a gun.</br></br>Who can feel safe in an era of random shootings? Who does not fear the flare-up of race hatred when vicious whites from Queens club a black athlete senseless in Atlantic Beach and vicious blacks stab a young Jew to death in Crown Heights?</br></br>At a time when we crave strong leadership. Mayor David Dinkins has been dishearteningly passive and Gov. Mario Cuomo has been irresponsibly remote — only rousing himself a few weeks ago to propose a revival plan whose payoff lies chiefly in the future.</br></br>But despair is an overreaction. New York has emerged from worse crises, over and over again, and been stronger than ever.</br></br>New York is no longer a great port, no longer a major manufacturing center, and even its role as a headquarters city is eroding. But new roles will emerge, just as they did the last time around. Great cities don’t die; they adapt. | positive | 108663984 | yes | 7.0 | train | 7.0 | 169 |
Rally Fades to Small Loss, Despite the Fedfs Rate Cut. "The substantial easing of monetary policy to date, combined with ongoing measures to foster market liquidity, should help to promote moderate growth over time and to mitigate risks to economic activity.” — Feci statement</br></br>WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve, mixing concern about the feeble economy with worries about rising inflation, reduced short-term interest rates Wednesday for the seventh time since September, while signaling a pause in any additional rate cuts for now.</br></br>The Fed’s action brought the federal funds rate — the rate it charges banks for overnight loans — to 2 percent, from 2.25 percent, the lowest level since November 2004. It defended that step as necessary to counter the ailing housing sector and the "considerable stress” shadowing financial markets.</br></br>The move followed new indications that the economy remained fragile at best. The Commerce Department reported early Wednesday that the economy expanded only 0.6 percent on an annualized basis in the first three months of 2008, short of an overall downturn but still far from healthy.</br></br>The new economic data and the Fed’s move reflect what most Americans have been experiencing. They are spending more on gasoline and food and less on almost everything else. Their homes have declined in value, and businesses are in- | negative | 897110419 | yes | 3.6666666666666665 | train | 4.0 | 170 |
Money Supply Off $1.3 Billion: Rates Decline As Fed Adds More Reserves Interest Rates Declined M-2 Money Supply Measure Money Supply Off $1.3 Billion Easing of Monetary Policy. The Federal Reserve announced yesterday that the nation’s basic money supply fell $1.3 billion in the week ended July 1, and has now declined for two consecutive months.</br></br>The slowdown in growth of the money supply since April, when the adjusted M-1B measure grew at a 16.9 percent annual rate, has strengthened the already widespread predictions that the Fed has decided to encourage more money supply growth by making bank reserves slightly more plentiful.</br></br>“For the first time in three months the Fed is below or else hitting its growth targets for the two key money supply numbers,” said Allan Leslie, a money market analyst at the Discount Corporation of New York, a government securities dealer. “It’s very positive news for the credit markets,” Mr. Leslie added, “since over time you can be expecting the Fed to increase its targets for growth of nonborrowed reserves in the banking system.”</br></br>Before the money supply announcement interest rates declined in yesterday’s trading, as the Fed added reserves to the banking system for the third consecutive day when it arranged temporary purchases of securities. The Fed’s moves this week to add reserves were greater than some specialists expected, and combined with a drop in the overnight funds rate to as low as 17i/2 percent, it led them to conclude that the Fed was trying to make reserves slightly more plentiful.</br></br>Reserves are funds that banks and other financial institutions must maintain at the Fed or other regulators. When the Fed makes bank reserves less scarce, short-term interest rates decline, and money supply growth is stimulated as banks step-up their lending activity. When the Fed makes reserves scarcer, short-term interest rates rise, and money supply growth is curbed as banks cut back their lending activity. | positive | 121598264 | yes | 6.5 | train | 6.0 | 171 |
The Forecasts for 1965: Business Outlook for the Year Ahead Ranges From Glum to Glowing Side BUSINESS IN '65: AN EXAMINATION. The latest batch of business forecasts for 1965 reveal a surprisingly broad and bewildering spectrum of views— ranging from dark gray to rosy red. Most forecasters fore- see a good business year, al-‘ though they expect the pace of the expansion to slow after the first half. :But there are many dissenters, with some predicting a recession while others are convinced that there will be little if any loss of momentum.</br></br>There was little difference of opinion in the forecasts of a year ago, when the vast majority agreed that tax reductions would insure a continuation of the upturn and disagreed only over the precise extent of the rise. Now, economists are at odds in assessing a great many impending developments. This explains the extraordinarily wide range of predictions.</br></br>The wage negotiations in the steel industry will influence business activity. SO will the Administration’s. economic program, and Congress’s response to it. It is even more difficult to predict whether fresh steps may be required to defend the international status of the dollar or what will happen to the price' structure and what they portend for business and the intangible factor of confidence.</br></br>Forecasters have no choice but to make definite assumptions about these and other uncertainties. Thus, they are in accord that business will be excellent for the immediate future, largely because the pace is already strong. But they: diverge in their views for the last half of the year, which can only add to the confusion of businessmen, consumers and in-: vestors.</br></br>There is a general expectation that the prolonged expan- ! sion in business will finally see : what Albert T. Sommers of the National Industrial Conference' Board terms a "pronounced 1 shift in gears.” | positive | 115941788 | yes | 6.5 | train | 6.0 | 172 |
Inflation at 13.3%: What Is This Rapacious Thing?: Inflation: What is This Monster That Devours Paychecks? How It Happened Two Views on Inflation Measurement Problem Battling Ignorance The Jobs Target Changing Perceptions What Remedies Exist?. INFLATION. For years it crept along silently like a cat, barely noticed. Then it changed shape and grew bolder, but remained more or less friendly. In the United States, where high discretionary incomes and an immense choice of goods limited its impact, it seemed that only foreigners had seen inflation’s really savage side.</br></br>Now the beast is easily visible, a luminescent specter, a killer, a threat to society, public enemy No. 1.</br></br>How did this monster get loose? What and who does it feed on? How can it be tamed? Just what is inflation, anyway, this rapacious thing that devours paychecks, savings and peace of mind?</br></br>A surge in the price of wheat, Manhattan office space, mortgage money, scalped tickets to the Super Bowl, houses in Washington, oil or small cars may indeed raise the cost of living. But individually they don’t constitute inflation. They can result from crop failure, business-cycle shortage, anti-inflation measures, a ’’Cinderella’’ football team, zoning requirements, a foreign cartel, revolution or simply a change in consumer preferences.</br></br>That is what the United States has. In 1979, the Consumer Price Index went up 13.3 percent, the highest one-year rate since 1946. More important, while price increases were less than 2 percent a year for much of the 1950’s and 1960’s they started the 1970’s at 5.2 percent, and have escalated steadily for the past four years. | negative | 121140355 | yes | 2.3333333333333335 | train | 2.0 | 173 |
Go On A Savings Spree. CONGRESS has passed and President Bush hns signed legislation to rescue die economy from the Jaws of recession. The S1G8 billion package, which includes an effort to increase consumer spending by distributing SGOO rebates to individuals, can be faulted In many ways: witlt two wars and a budget deficit the nation can’t really afford it; it will probably arrive too late In the business cycle to actually moke a difference; and tlie near-universal aspect of the rebates doesn’t make much sense. But tlie most fundamentally troubling tiling is the premise that while consumer overspending got us into this mess, more will get us out of it. Tills is akin to the old saw about curing n hangover with the hair of tlie dog that bit you.</br></br>What if instead of giving rebates we helped create an Investor society by seeding universal Investment accounts? This would not only pump cash into the economy, through tlie slightly more indirect route of investment, it would also help us correct some of the near-fatal flaws in our long-term economic landscape.</br></br>The recent slowdown In gross domestic product growth is only a symptom of recession, not the cause. While there are many tilings to blame for the current crisis — most notably the subprime mortgage mess — one factor that hns received little attention is America’s low savings rate. In 2005, net private savings in the United States were negative. In other words, we were spending money that we didn’t have, chipping away at our national wealth.</br></br>The last time the savings rate dipped into the red was during the Great Depression, At that time, of course, it made sense not to save. Joblessness was high and money scarce; we needed to dip into our kitty to survive. But our negative savings during the Bush boom had a different cause. Evidently, we felt so flush with (paper) gains in tlie stock and housing markets that we spent money as if there were no tomorrow.</br></br>Republicans have long argued that the way to stimulate long-term growth is by promoting investment over spending. Hence their perennial efforts to lower taxes on capital gains, dividends their community. This is why banks In cities don’t readily offer mortgages for apartments in buildings in which most of the tenants are renters, not owners. My own research suggests Hint linving savings and Investment equity is one of the best predictors of whether someone’s children will attend and graduate from college, investing motivates people of all income levels to defer gratification and become knowledgeable about the economy and society. | negative | 897743485 | yes | 4.0 | train | 4.0 | 174 |
CUT IN TAXES URGED TO INCREASE WORK: Plan to Curb Decline in Jobs Is Submitted by Public Affairs Institute. WASHINGTON, June 18—The Public Affairs Institute today proposed a series of actions for the immediate combatting- of unemployment. One of them was a cut in taxes.</br></br>In view of its source, this recommendation may presage an early change in the official economic program of President Truman. The institute is engaged in research and is under the auspices of "liberals," most of whom are regarded as friendly to the Administration.</br></br>Edwin G. Nourse. chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, is reputed to have urged a change in this program. The Administration's current thinking probably will not be stated until the mid-; year economic report to Congress is submitted next month.</br></br>The institute's study declared unemployment already was serious, and growing; and that nothing in sight warranted any prediction that it would be stopped soon. In general, the study emphasized a need for additional purchasing power.</br></br>Authors of the study are Dewey Anderson, executive director of the institute, and Wilfred Lumer and John Shott, economists. | negative | 105831466 | yes | 2.6666666666666665 | train | 3.0 | 175 |
For the Near-Term, Caution and More Caution: A Wall St. Roundtable. EINHORN: The amount of overvaluation, however, is not large. Shares are about 5 percent to 10 percent overvalued relative to current interest rates.</br></br>Q.: On the valuation basis, you said that the dividend multiple is overvalued? Why do you look at that instead of, say, price-to-eamings ratio?</br></br>BERG: In this five-year bull market, first people said there were low prices, then low P/ E’s, then low prices-to-book, then low prices-to-breakup value. And breakup value, of course, reflected recent values and not book values, validating a higher number. But the only thing that really hasn’t changed as we’ve gone through the last number of years is dividends. They tend to be that portion of profits that management deems unnecessary in the business, that it pays out to its shareholders. And that’s been reasonably consistent. So dividends seem to be a pretty good benchmark with which to work. On a multiple basis, we start</br></br>BERG: I think we’ll have a better opportunity. As a rule, we don’t buy bonds just to collect a coupon. Steve is indicating that he thinks he's going to get some appreciation on the bonds, and I think that he’s correct. But I think it’s early to expect that.</br></br>EINHORN: If for whatever reason there are not capital gains to be earned in bonds, there are certainly not capital gains to be earned in stocks. Notwithstanding the large decline in share prices of the last two months, stocks are still expensive relative to interest rates. | negative | 110687007 | yes | 3.0 | train | 3.0 | 176 |
SUNDAY MONEY: FUNDAMENTALLY The Problem With Great Expectations. Throughout much of this year, equity investors have had to endure a series of challenges, starting with rising interest ratest budding inf lationary assures and high energy prices. More recently, investors have had to gauge the potential fallout of not one but two major hurricanes.</br></br>Yet through it all, stocks have managed to climb their wall of worry — or at least hang on — because of a big boost from strong corporate earnings. Or, to put it more accurately, they’ve been able to advance, if ever so slightly, by posting solid profit growth that exceeded modest expectations.</br></br>At the start of the year, analysts were predicting a conservative gain of 7.6 percent in first-quarter earnings for the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index, versus the same period a year earlier. As it turned out, S.& P. profits jumped nearly 14 percent in the first three months of the year.</br></br>In April, Wall Street analysts were expecting second-quarter earnings to grow 8.8 percent. Profits grew around 12 percent during the period.</br></br>Yet the luxury of low earnings expectations appears to be a thing of the past — and that puts equity prices at risk. In recent weeks — even after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, wreaking havoc on New Orleans and its port — analysts have been lifting their forecasts for third- and fourth-quarter profits. | positive | 92916576 | yes | 6.333333333333333 | train | 6.0 | 177 |
Jobless Rate Shows Little Change, But Some Hopeful Signs Are Seen: U.S. JOBLESS RATE IS LITTLE CHANGED. WASHINGTON, April 1 — Unemployment in March was virtually unchanged from the two months before, at 10.1 percent of the labor force, the Labor Department said today. But there were signs of moderate improvement in the number of people employed in manufacturing,</br></br>The seasonally adjusted 10.1 percent figure, a decline of one-tenth of a percentage point from the January and February rates, included members of the armed forces. The March unemployment rate for the civilian labor force was 10.3, also a decline of one-tenth of a point from the two previous months.</br></br>In New York City, however, unemployment showed a sharp rise, to 11 percent in March from 9.2 percent in February. New York State’s rate also rose, but New Jersey’s remained virtually stable. [Page 25.]</br></br>The Commissioner of Labor Statistics, Dr. Janet L. Norwood, noted that the number of payroll jobs, excluding the self-employed, increased last month and the average hours worked each week increased, both positive signs. But she declined to say that economic recovery had begun or that the unemployment rate had peaked.</br></br>Most encouraging, she said at a news conference this morning, was that 60 percent of the 200 industries surveyed last month increased their employment. Since December, she said, manufacturing jobs have increased by 130,000. Most of these increases were in durable goods industries, such as transportation and electrical equipment, fab- | positive | 122202944 | yes | 6.0 | train | 6.0 | 178 |
Getting a Shave, Taking a Plunge?. MYRON KANDEL wonders whether he will have a “Samson effect" on the stock market Mr. Kandel, a financial commentator on CNN, is going to have his beard shaved. Will the Dow Jones Industrial Average tumble?</br></br>The Dow has risen more than 3,300 points since he grew the salt-and-pepper (but mostly salt) beard in the fall of 1996 when he was recuperating from heart bypass surgery.</br></br>“When I got back to work, I thought I’d keep it on for a day or two — it shouldn’t be a total loss,” he said. “Then we decided to let the viewers decide.” Roughly 48,000 votes were cast in a survey on a CNN web site, he said. Keeping the beard defeated shaving by a margin of 2 to 1 Times change. “The last couple of weeks, my wife has been cooling ort it and I am getting tired of it,” he said.</br></br>He took another vote'the oth-’ er day, but this time only his family was eligible. His wife, son, daughter, son-in-law and three grandsons were unanimous: shave it off.</br></br>Mr. Kandel was going to do just that on Tuesday, but was called to work early because the stock market was plummeting. Yesterday his barber took the day off. The next available appointment is tomorrow. | negative | 109863422 | yes | 3.0 | train | 3.0 | 179 |
A Quarter Of Gains, But Doubt Persists: Signs of a New Bull, Or a Rest for the Bear? After a Quarter of Gains, Investors' Doubts Persist. J»FTER several rate cuts by the Federal Mjk Reserve, months of corporate cost-cutting and layoffs, news that tax refund checks would soon be in the mail, and four quarters of tumbling markets, the second quarter brought a bit of a respite from the gloom.</br></br>The major market averages rallied, buoying most mutual fund sectors along with them. Still, skepticism rules the day.</br></br>“Nobody has any conviction about anything,” said Edward B. Jamieson, who manages several stock funds for Franklin Templeton Investments, the San Mateo, Calif., mutual fund unit of Franklin Resources.</br></br>"Even though you’ve had this rotation into value stocks, the news has not been particularly good,” Mr. Jamieson added. “It’s not that money is following good news; it’s just looking for a home.”</br></br>Many investors, professional or amateur, are gun-shy. After all, the second-quarter rally, which occurred mostly in April, was something of a baby step after a morose year. Technology funds gained 12.5 percent in the quarter, but they have still lost more than half of their value over the 12 months through June 30. The average diversified mutual fund gained 7.8 percent in the quarter, but is still clown 8.8 percent over the last year, according to MOmingstar Inc. | positive | 92148242 | yes | 6.0 | train | 6.0 | 180 |
Reports Spur Treasury Price Rise. Interest rates plunged yesterday as prices of Treasury securities soared, largely on new evidence that the economy was softening and inflation fears subsiding.</br></br>The frenetic demand for Treasury bonds, as well as for high- and low-grade corporate issues, was spurred by two Government reports released before the New York markets opened, both indicating a weakening economy. The reports revived hopes that the Federal Reserve would be moved by the latest signs to lower interest rates.</br></br>One report said that the Producer Price Index for April fell three-tenths of 1 percent, following a two-tenths of 1 percent decline in March. The other showed a six-tenths of 1 percent decline in retail sales in April, which was the largest drop since October, when sales fell 1.4 percent.</br></br>Any negative economic news is bullish for the market in fixed-income securities. So is any indication that inflation is in check. The reason is that a strong economy tends to drive up interest rates and the rate of inflation and thus makes the yields on outstanding fixed-income debt issues less attractive by comparison.</br></br>The stock market, on the other hand, welcomes any drop in interest rates and inflation. It received news of both, resulting in sharp gains. | negative | 108548211 | yes | 2.0 | train | 2.0 | 181 |
New York's Jobless Rate Declined To 6.4% in May, and Jersey's Rose: National Average Remains Lower City's Jobless Rate Dips. New York State’s unemployment rate dropped to 6.4 percent last month, its lowest since August 1974, Herbert Bienstock, the regional commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, said yesterday.</br></br>5.9 percent in April, Mr. Bienstock reported. But he said the one-month change did not indicate a reversal of the trend toward lower unemployment rates in the metropolitan area in the last several years.</br></br>New York City’s jobless rate continued to drift downward; with the May rate at 8 percent, compared with 8.2 percent in April. The city’s rates are not adjusted for seasonal variations and therefore are not strictly comparable with seasonally adjusted state and national figures.</br></br>While the regional jobless figures have been declining, they are still higher than the national average, which was 5.8 percent in May—unchanged from April.</br></br>In New York State, Mr. Blenstock’s office reported, there were 502,000 people unemployed last month, 118,000 fewer than a year ago. The number of the state’s residents with jobs totaled 7,394,-000, or 249,000 more than a year ago. | positive | 120839053 | yes | 7.0 | train | 7.0 | 182 |
Rate Hopes Push Dow Up 24.44: But Texas Instruments Plunges 39 1/2 Rate Hopes Push Dow Up 24.44. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 24.44 points, to 1,220.55, its biggest one-day advance in more than three months.</br></br>Other major market indicators also finished higher. The New York Stock Exchange’s composite index of 1,500 common stocks rose 1.17, to 95.62, while Standard & Poor’s 500-stock Index added 2.16, to 164.84.</br></br>The main exceptions to the market’s impressive performance were in the home computer sector, which has been strong.</br></br>Most notably, Texas Instruments plunged 39V4 points, to 11814. in heavy trading. Texas Instruments said late Friday night that it expected to lose as much as $100 million for the second quarter because of a sharp drop in sales of home computers. Other computer stocks were weak. [Page D12.] Advance Is Broad</br></br>The gain In the Dow Jones average yesterday was its biggest one-day advance since Feb. 24, when it climbed 24.47 points on rumors that the prime rate would soon drop. The next day, the prime rate fell to 10V4 percent, its current level, from 11 percent. | positive | 122107330 | yes | 7.0 | train | 7.0 | 183 |
Labor Leaders Assert the Economic Situation Is a 'Dangerous Mess'. Bums, chairman of the Federal [pace of productivity improve-1 and, over a period years, it Reserve Board, which it said iment and continuing, large def- j probably would generate a</br></br>SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 30— [had left the national economy icits The Executive Council of the jmore vulnerable to the e'ects American Federation of Labor of adverse events at home and and Congress of Industrial Or- 'abroad than in several decades, ganizations described the eco- i Despite this, the council said, nomic situation tn the United ] President Ford and his econom-States today as “the most dan- jjc advisers have opposed mea-gerous mess in 40 years” and sures to generate a vigorous warned of a slow recovery with'economic pick-up and rapid high unemployment continuing j progress to full employment, to persist. |Moreover, the council coritin-</br></br>In an economic report to jued. Congress has failed to delegates arriving for the labor j adopt “a decisively expansion-federation’s 11th convention ary budget policy” of to override opening here Thursday, the council sounded a gloomy note but called for Government policies to assure a full employment economy with rising real incomes and restored public confidence.</br></br>President Ford’s vetoes of job-creating measures to supplement this year’s tax cuts and extended unemployment benefits.</br></br>in the Federal budget,”j greater volume of . outlays for1 the council said. ! plants and machines. In the: The council report said that'long run,” the council said.j, business had cut back invest- “the only sound incentive for ment in riew productive ca-i increasing business investment, I pacity because of idle plants I generally, is expanding demand I and machines and continued and high rates of capacity utili-l high interest rates. zation." I | negative | 120579273 | yes | 3.0 | train | 3.0 | 184 |
Former Hotel Is Recast As Housing for Elderly. DIRECTIONS: From Verraiano Bridge: Exit Staten Island Expressway (278) at Richmond BlvdVClove Rd. Proceed on Service Rd. (Narrows Rd. N) about 7/10 mile to Clove Rd. Turn right and go 1/2 mile to Victory Blvd. Turn right and go about 1-1/2 miles and turn right onto Cebra Ave. Go 2/10 mile and turn left onto Ward Ave. Proceed about 1/4 mile to Tompkins Circle.</br></br>VIEWING DATES: Sat. Aug. 7. Sun. Aug. 8 from 12 noon to 4 p.m. and Mon. Aug. 0. Tues. Aug. 10 from 4 to 8 pjn.</br></br>Real Estate Auctions, Inc. Affiliate Auctioneers Realtors* consultants 18 E. 41st St. Suite 1600. New York NY 10017</br></br>The complete offering terms are in (he ottering plan which is available from the sponsor. H87-0011 This u not an offering to residents of states where prohibited by law.</br></br>“The neighborhood Is so residential and quiet There are trees and grass and floweis. There's also a variety of shops and restaurants neaiby and I life the security of having a doorman.” | negative | 109081204 | yes | 1.0 | train | 1.0 | 185 |
Prospects. Alan Greenspan, a leading contender to replace Paul A. Volcker at the helm of the Federal Reserve Board, may not fit the mold of the * ‘ President’s man.” Aides are arguing that Mr. Reagan must place his own man as chairman of the Fed when Mr. Volcker’s four-year term runs out Aug. 6.</br></br>But if the White House is looking for a different policy — either a little more adherence to the money supply or a push to get interest rates down further for die election year— Mr. Greenspan may not be the man.</br></br>Friends of the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Ford and outside adviser to President Reagan say he will be another Volcker. "Alan’s actions would not be significantly different from those of Mr. Volcker,” one associate said. Mr. Greenspan is not commenting, but he has said several times that Mr. Volcker deserves reappointment.</br></br>One skirmish during the budget battle in the Senate next week will be over possible language in the Budget Resolution that would require the Federal Reserve to push for a stronger economic recovery. It represents another effort to chip away at the independence of the nation’s central bank.</br></br>Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Democrat of New York, wants language that would direct the Fed to spur the economy onto a 6 percent or 7 percent recovery path this year, rather than the 4.7 percent pace the Reagan Administration and many economists are forecasting. | negative | 122313768 | yes | 4.0 | train | 4.0 | 186 |
Governor Calls For Session On Fiscal Crisis. ALBANY — Gov. David A. Paterson, in a brief and rare live televised address, said Tuesday evening that New York is facing a fiscal crisis in the wake of Wall Street’s meltdown, and he called on the Legislature to return next month to grapple with a budget deficit that will grow to $26.2 billion over the next three years.</br></br>Mr. Paterson gave few details about what actions he would take, but he told the public that his administration would examine an array of difficult potential steps, including reducing the state’s work force, cutting additional spending in state agencies and selling or leasing public assets.</br></br>“Our economic woes are so severe that I wanted to talk to you personally this evening about where we stand,” the governor said in a speech from the Capitol that lasted roughly five minutes.</br></br>The governor, who is legally blind and deli vers speeches from memory, sat at a mahogany table in the Red Room.</br></br>Even as he called on citizens to “cut up our credit cards,” he said he would push for two major initiatives that could cost the state money. | negative | 897125543 | yes | 3.0 | train | 3.0 | 187 |
Inflation Jumped 1.2% in September to a 25-Year High. Inflation rose to its highest monthly rate in more than 25 years in September, the government reported yesterday, but excluding a surge in energy costs, prices were restrained through most of the economy.</br></br>The consumer price index, which has been rising steadily through much of the year, jumped 1.2 percent last month, the fastest monthly pace since March 1980, the Labor Department reported. Still, the core inflation rate, which excludes volatile energy and food prices, rose just 0.1 percent, a rate that has stayed steady for the last four months.</br></br>The inflation figures, the first reflecting the impact of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, were perhaps the most closely followed of the economic dhta released yesterday. Other reports showed that retail sales rose at a moderate pace after sliding in August consumer confidence dropped for the third consecutive month, and industrial production declined as the two'hurricanes and a strike at Boeing idled assembly lines, oil rigs, chemical plants and refineries.</br></br>The Commerce Department reported that retail sales increased by 0.2 percent in September, slower than the 0.5 percent gain economists had expected. Excluding cars, retail sales rose 1.1 percent.</br></br>In August, retail sales fell 2.1 per-cent'as Detroit’s big three automakers wound down big discounts. | negative | 92959570 | yes | 3.0 | train | 3.0 | 188 |
Business Diary. Why, exactly, did stocks unravel Tuesday afternoon, with the Dow industrials losing 91 points, mainly in the last hour? No one really knew. There was the usual doubletalk about “support levels” and “corrections,” but the only reasonable explanation seemed to be that investors suddenly grasped the idea that with interest rates rising, they could get better yields in bonds. If so, they were a bit slow on the uptake — it had been a full week since the Federal Reserve gave its latest shove to rates. There was also talk that weakness in "cyclical” stocks — the ones that rely on a strong economy — yanked the wider market down. But a lot of it is probably just trigger-happy traders: no economy is as bumpy as this market. Sure enough, on Wednesday the market steadied, and on Fri-day the few traders who showed up sent the Dow to a 33-point rebound.</br></br>Bob Dole certainly got the capital-gains stew bubbling again. Last week he threatened, briefly, to withhold his support for a world trade pact unless President Clinton came around on this much-debated issue. Cutting the gains tax, now 28 percent, is dear to Republican hearts — it’s part of their “Contract With America.” But would it be just another tax lollipop for the rich? No, some say: with the rate high, the rich just sit on stale assets, tying up capital that could invigorate new ventures. And after a capital-gains cut, they say, tax revenue would flood into the Treasury. Then again, if politicians just left the tax alone, nobody would wait for the political winds to shift; they’d sell assets when the time seemed right. But of course politicians can’t leave things alone — they’d be out of a job.</br></br>No one suggests letting the poor go without medical care, but a lot of people are struggling to find a way to cut costs. And preventive care is cheaper than letting someone get really sick and land in a hospital emergency room. On that theory, presumably. New Jersey officials proposed last week to cut Medicaid payments to hospitals by 20 percent. “We cannot be in the business of subsidizing hospitals,” a state official said. That makes sense — but the state has only just begun to arrange preventive-care alternatives. Can hospitals absorb such cutbacks yet? *</br></br>Who owns mutual savings banks, anyway? More to the point, if they're sold, who should profit? Some insist that depositors own them, and should get any windfall. In reality, bank executives have often cut nice deals for themselves, getting stock and options worth millions during sales — rewards earned, they say, for their long service. But last week Federal regulators clamped down: no free stock, no options. They did back down on one issue. Outside investors have put money in banks to qualify as depositors when the payoff came, and regulators had considered limiting insider rights to local depositors — but relented after some investors sued.</br></br>There’s not much left to believe in. Politicians keep disappointing, rumors persist that Santa Claus doesn’t exist, and now even the Pentium chip, that pinnacle of high technology, is less than perfect. Even as computers are vilified for running our lives, they are also seen as islands of precision in an imprecise world. But once in a long while, it seems, the Pentium — which is made by Intel and is in perhaps 10 percent of all personal computers sold — makes a slight division error. Intel — which has fixed it and is offering replacements-, though not a recall — insists that a typical user would have just one chance in nine billion of an error. For some, that’s too risky. And anyway, did Intel use a Pentium to calculate that risk? | negative | 109363871 | yes | 3.0 | train | 3.0 | 189 |
Yields Mixed for the Week On C.D.'s and Bank Funds. Yields on certificates of deposit and money market accounts were mixed for the week ended yesterday, as interest rates continued to be propped up by the unresolved Middle East crisis.</br></br>However, analysts at The Bank Rate Monitor noted that for each day that does not produce new tensions, the focus returns to the weakening domestic economy and the Federal Reserve Bank, which money market traders believe must move toward easing short-term interest rates.</br></br>At the Treasury Department’s closely watched weekly bill auction on Monday, interest rates were mixed on the new three-month and six-month Treasury bills. It is a widely held belief that the results of these bill auctions have an influence over what many banks may eventually pay on money market accounts and certificates of deposit.</br></br>The average discount rate for a new three-month bill rose by two basis points, to 7.41 percent, while the six-month bill rate fell by two basis points, to 7.34 percent. A basis point is one-hundredth of a percentage point.</br></br>In the weekly survey of New York area banks and savings institutions done by The Bank Rate Monitor, the average yields were down. At commercial banks, the average money market account was down by a basis point, to 6.21 percent, while yields on three-month certificates and six-month certificates fell by five basis points each, to 7.60 percent and 7.69 percent, respectively. | negative | 108517230 | yes | 3.5 | train | 4.0 | 190 |
Volcker Calls Rates Too High: Long-Term Levels Said to Snag Recovery Volcker Calls Rates Too High. WASHINGTON, April 12 — Paul A. Volcker, the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, said today that longterm interest rates were too high for a sustained economic recovery.</br></br>But his comments on Fed policy, in testimony before the House Banking Committee, provided no signal as to the likely direction of either long- or short-term interest rates, which the markets and politicians are watching closely.</br></br>On a separate issue, Mr. Volcker urged Congress not to rush ahead with approval of a requirement that the Fed supply specific "objectives” for economic growth, unemployment and inflation. Mr. Volcker said this move, which is another of the efforts to strengthen Congressional control over Fed policy, would be “counterproductive.”</br></br>Several members of the committee, including its chairman, Fernand St Germain, a Rhode Island Democrat, pressed Mr. Volcker on this issue. Mr. St Germain criticized the “nameless, faceless mystics who function in absolute secrecy at the Fed,” and said, “Mr. Chairman, we simply want to know what your best estimates are.”</br></br>In response, Mr. Volcker did say that the Fed wanted to discuss the issue of these new targets in a less rushed atmosphere, which means that there is an opening for a change in the monetary policy reports and targets the Fed gives to Congress. | positive | 122172486 | yes | 6.0 | train | 6.0 | 191 |
Stocks Begin The New Year On Mixed Note: Nasdaq Sets a Record Despite Rate Concerns STOCKS Share Prices Begin Trading in the New Year on a Mixed Note The Favorites Hot & Cold COMMODITIES CURRENCIES Ex-Bank Executive to Pay $1 Million Fine. Stocks began the new year with a topsyturvy performance yesterday, as technology and Internet shares bolted to new records even as broad swaths of the market slumped in the wake of a sharp rise in long-term interest rates.</br></br>Observers who only note the closing quotes for major market averages would probably comment that the Nasdaq composite index continued to perform as it did throughout much of December, when it rose m what seemed like a straight lme.</br></br>Indeed, the Nasdaq, which ended 1999 with a record, did so again yesterday. Led by companies like JDS Uniphase, Yahoo and CMGL the index gained 61.84 points, or L52 percent, to 4J31J5.</br></br>Within minutes of the opening, the Nasdaq was up more than 122, to as high as 4492.19. The index then reversed and fell as low as 3.989.71 — a swing of 202.48.</br></br>By contrast, the performance of the Do* Jones industrial average and the Standa & Poor’s 500-stock index was more core tent: both measures moved lower sho after the opening bell, and stayed d i throughout the session. | negative | 91820920 | yes | 3.0 | train | 3.0 | 192 |
High-Risk 'Pennies' For the Bold. AFICIONADOS compare the “penny stock market” with playing a slot machine: Your quarters may get eaten up one after another, but if you hit the jackpot, the rewards are sweet. Whether you come out ahead reflects both your luck and your discipline in knowing when to stop.</br></br>“When I was playing the penny stock market I had three times as many losers as winners,” said Terry Freeman, the publisher of the National OTC Stock Journal, a weekly newspaper in Denver. “I went through hell many times, but I stayed in and finally hit two big winners that I had, fortunately, put a lot of money on.”He added, “But you've always got to be prepared to lose all your investment.”</br></br>The performance of Fared Robotics System, a company that distributes industrial robots, demonstrates the volatility of the penny stocks. Fared went public in August 1982, at 25 cents a share andwithin 18 months was trading at about $3. Last month, however, it was trading at 50 cents.</br></br>Once, all penny stocks could be purchased for literally pennies a share. Nowadays, as a result of inflation, the term generally refers to all issues under $5, although some stocks still sell for one cent to 10 cents a share. These stocks are inexpensive because often they are new or recently organized businesses, unknown and untried, that are seeking venture capital. A few trade on the New York Stock Exchange — Ala Moana Hawaii Properties and Lehigh Valley Industries, for example — and more, such as Driller Inc. and the Harvey Group, on the American Stock Exchange, but most of them are traded over-the-counter.</br></br>The penny stocks can be traced to the 1880’s, when prospectors out West traded shares in their claims for food and other necessities. And the market has remained based in the West : The principal hotbeds of trading are Denver, Vancouver, British Columbia, and Edmonton, Alberta, all of them historical centers of prospecting and mining. Colorado has proved more receptive to new issues than other states, many of which have what is known as “blue sky” laws, a form of merit review. Colorado, along with several other states, requires only that public offerings comply with Securities and Exchange Commission regulations. | positive | 111215620 | yes | 8.0 | train | 8.0 | 193 |
Once Again, Inflation Is a No-Show: Consumer Price Index Up 0.1% for November Once Again, Inflation Proves a No-Show The price rise for November is the smallest increase since June.. Despite booming retail sales and strong I consumer demand, the Consumer Price 8 Index barely rose in November, the Labor 1 Department reported yesterday. Even gasoline prices did not make their usual contribution to inflation. 1</br></br>Prices rose in a few scattered areas — like long-distance telephone tolls, airline fares, prescription drugs and housing costs — but the index, reflecting a great variety of goods and services, was up only 0.1 percent, the smallest increase since June.</br></br>"There is too much competition and too much deregulation, and as a result companies are finding it virtually impossible to | raise prices,” said Ed Yardeni, chief econ- j omist at Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown, offering an explanation why rising inflation, | widely expected on Wall Street, fails month j after month to show itself in the numbers. 5 The weak November inflation number | should have sent stock prices soaring, with £ its suggestion that the Federal Reserve’s g policy makers will refrain from raising 3 interest rates when they meet next week, jj Stable prices and interest rates encourage • investors to remain in stocks rather than 1 shift to interest-bearing securities. I</br></br>But instead of focusing on the bland j inflation data, investors responded to two t other government reports that reflected ! the economy’s strength and for that reason | seemed to portend higher interest rates, if '< not next week then soon enough. The Dow | Jones industrial average fell 32.42, to | 11,160.17, and interest rates on Treasury s securities rose slightly. |</br></br>0.9 percent, a result of holiday spending I and a surge in auto purchases in a strong ’ economy. In the second report, the nation’s ' current-account deficit, a measure of what ! Americans owe to foreign lenders, rose in j the third quarter to $89.95 billion, up 11.2 j percent from the second quarter. Higher j interest rates, in Wall Street’s view, would i cut into these trends by raising the cost of credit. Spending would slow not only for domestic goods but also for imports, the 1 main reason for the rising foreign debt. While Mr. Yardeni attributed the mild i inflation numbers to competition and deregulation — of the telecommunications industry in the mid-1990’s and banks and financial services companies this fall — others said the stock market might be playing a dual and somewhat contradictory role. | positive | 110128356 | yes | 6.333333333333333 | train | 6.0 | 194 |
Inflation: One Issue, Two Views: Blough and Meany Focus On Trend in N.I.C.B. Talks Inflation: One Problem and Two Points of View. Roger M. Blough, chairman of United States Steel Corporation, addressing the 50th anniversary convocation of the National Industrial Conference Board yesterday at Waldorf.</br></br>Roger M. Blough and George Meany spoke here yesterday to the same conference about the same problem — inflation — touching on what is causing it and what to do about it. And that was where the sameness ended.</br></br>Opening the 50th anniversary world convocation of the National Industrial Conference Board, Mr. Blough, chairman of the United States Steel Corporation, renewed his attack on President Johnson’s proposals to reduce industry's tax incentives, and called instead for a cut in Government spending.</br></br>A few hours later, Mr. Meany, president of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, countered that the incentives already have pushed productive capacity beyond consumer-buying capacity. At the same time,</br></br>Mr. Blough’s address of welcome was followed by civic greetings from Mayor Lindsay, before Lord Franks, Provost of; Worcester College, Oxford University, delivered his keynote! speech, “Evolution of 20th Con-: tury Capitalism.” ! | positive | 117417279 | yes | 7.5 | train | 8.0 | 195 |
Article 8 -- No Title. & ^ y ^l1's is a liquidity-driven market,” H opined David Shulman, a long-n headed market analyst with Salo-</br></br>A cartoon by J. P. Rini in The New Yorker shows a man at a modern-art show opening, staring at the “Exit” sign, while another museumgocr explains to a friend, "Roger has always been text-driven'*</br></br>What’s driving -driven? Frederick C. Mish of Mer-riam-Webster points out that "having a compulsive or urgent quality*’ is the 10th Collegiate’s definition for the past participle driven. "This use of -driven” he says, “is a fairly straightforward extension of the long-familiar use in phrases like ‘mo tor-driven camera’ and ‘a water-driven clock mechanism.’ ” often in technological or business contexts,” says Fred Mish. “Probably the most common combination is the computer term menu-driven. As computers started to become more and more important in business and indeed all aspects of public and private life, the rest followed.”</br></br>Less technical citations include Gloria Steinem’s description of a TV character as “a career-driven woman” and a Texas politician’s complaints about “formula-driven legislation.” The current newsletter for the Modern Language Association refers to a poet’s biography that paints its subject as “an excessively egocentric and ambition-driven artist.”</br></br>Psychobabble is what is driving -driven. It’s the same construction that made voguish compound modifiers out of -obsessed, -compulsive, -intense and -motivated. | positive | 109089198 | yes | 6.0 | train | 6.0 | 196 |
Unemployment Hits 5.7% As Jobs Fall for 7th Month. The unemployment rate spiked again in July, to 5.7 percent, its highest level in more than four years and a strong signal that come Election Day millions of Americans will still be hunting for work.</br></br>"We are not seeing a catastrophic collapse in the job market, like you often see in recessions,” said James Classman, senior domestic economist for JPMorgnn Chase. “What we are seeing instead Is a steady hemorrhaging of jobs, and that is going to continue until housing stabilizes and stops dragging down tlie rest of the economy.” 51,000 jobs, the government reported Friday. For millions still at work, hours were reduced, a hidden form of unemployment, and the average raise was less than enough to keep up with inflation.</br></br>The steady erosion in payrolls — 463,000 jobs have disappeared since January — cut across nearly every sector in July. Teenagers, 16 to 19, trying to land work, were particularly hard hit. Their unemployment rate, 20.3 percent, up 2.2 percentage points in just a month, was the highest since 1992, contributing significantly to tlie jump in the overall unemployment rate. That rate jumped from 5.5 percent in June and 5 percent in April.</br></br>“Parents don’t push their kids to go to work in good times,” Mr. Glassman said, “but they probably are doing so now witli gasoline and food prices squeezing family budgets.”</br></br>'80 '02 '84 '86 '88 '90 '92 '94 86 '98 '00 02 '04 '06 'OB Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics n NKW YO|tK timks At 5.7 percent in July, the nation’s unemployment rate is approaching the highest level in more than four years. | negative | 897206429 | yes | 2.3333333333333335 | train | 2.0 | 197 |
Despite Upturn in Rates, Dow Still Gains 95.62 Points. - Overcoming an early stumble, stock prices climbed steadily yesterday to finish with sizable gains despite a rise in interest rates.</br></br>The Nasdaq composite index and the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index explored record territory for the Second consecutive day, and the Dow wlones industrial average gained |)5.62 points to jump back over 11,000. *jt closed at 11,066.42, within 41 points «f its May 13 peak £ A report of strong activity at the iiation’s factories last month combined with some second thoughts ^about Federal Reserve policy to jfrive interest rates higher as investors awaited the Government’s release today on June employment.</br></br>But the rate increase subsided as the day wore on, and Treasury yields finished just slightly higher, with the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond at in the opposite direction from the yield, fell '%2 to 892%2- Stock traders took the rate rise in stride.</br></br>“The stock and bond markets seem to be taking different views,” said Timothy M. Ghriskey, senior portfolio manager at the Dreyfus Corporation. Bond people, he said, are impressed by the fact that Federal Reserve rate increases are rarely one-shot exercises and that it was not all that encouraging that the Fed dropped its bias to tighten while raising rates Wednesday. The Fed has traditionally done this, he added, albeit without an immediate announcement.</br></br>tied to global turmoil and that the economy would keep bounding ahead, as implied by the manufacturing figures released by the National Association of Purchasing Management. There was no clear pattern in the day’s brisk stock trading, however, with the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite rising 20.06 points, to close | positive | 109936036 | yes | 7.0 | train | 7.0 | 198 |
THE WEEK IN BUSINESS Another Bad Price Report; the Fed Intervenes. nouncement from Washington: the Producer Price Index jumped in January at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 19.2 percent, the biggest monthly rise since November 1974. An hour after Friday’s announcement, which appears to foreshadow an even higher inflationary rate, the Federal Reserve Board took counter action, raising the discount rate, which it charges for loans to member banks, to a record 13 percent from 12 percent.</br></br>The move is intended to push interest rates higher and chill economic activity as a way to halt the rise in inflation. The surge in wholesale prices came despite a decline in food prices, and such items as gasoline and heating fuel paced the increase.</br></br>The stock market, which has been rising lately as investors resigned themselves to inflation, reverted to earlier form and fell on the news of worse inflation and more credit-tightening.</br></br>breathe in an inflationary atmosphere, interpreted the Fed’s anti-inflation move as too little and too late in the face of the increase in wholesale prices. Bond prices plunged.</br></br>The recession continued to be elusive. The nation’s money supply took a sharp $3.6 billion jump in the week ended Feb. 6. Industrial production in January increased three-tenths of a percent, its largest gain in four months. Retail sales gained a strong 2.3 percent, compared with a five-tenths of a percent gain in December. Business inventories rose four-tenths of a percent in November, signaling caution on inventorybuilding. | negative | 121151064 | yes | 3.0 | train | 3.0 | 199 |