BIZWATCH : MARKETS.MARKET LOGIC: Wall Street halted a weeklong decline Wednesday as stock prices rallied while interest rates fell. The Dow Jones industrial average Dow Jones Industrial Average The best known U.S. index of stocks. A price-weighted average of 30 actively traded blue-chip stocks, primarily industrials including stocks that trade on the New York Stock Exchange. gained 84.66 points, closing at 6,740.74. About half the day's rise occurred in the final 20 minutes of trading. MEMO IWSERKS' LOSS: Burbank-based Iwerks Entertainment Iwerks Entertainment was founded in 1985 by Stan Kinsey and Don Iwerks, two former Disney Executives, and became well known through 1996 as a leading developer of special venue and virtual reality theaters throughout the world. Inc. reported a loss of $57,000 for its second quarter ended Dec. 31, compared with earnings of $604,000, or 5 cents a share, in the year-earlier period with revenues dropping to $10 million from $13.2 million due to reduced sales for its TurboRide and Giant Screen attractions and the loss of a major sponsor for its Reactor attraction. The company had previously announced delays on signed TurboRide contracts in China. Stock of Iwerks was off 19 cents to $5.43 a share. PRICE-FIXING CHARGES: A U.S.-based unit of the drug and chemical giant Bayer AG Bayer AG German chemical and pharmaceutical company. Founded in 1863 by Friedrich Bayer (1825–1880), it now operates plants in more than 30 countries. Bayer has originated scores of pharmaceuticals, chemicals, and synthetic materials; it was the first developer and agreed to pay a $50 million fine to settle criminal price-fixing charges involving the worldwide sale of citric acid citric acid or 2-hydroxy-1,2,3-propanetricarboxylic acid, HO2CCH2C(OH)(CO2H)CH2CO2 , a widely used ingredient in soft drinks and processed foods. The Justice Department said Wednesday the penalty against Haarmann & Reimer and a senior executive, Hans Hartmann, was the second-largest criminal antitrust fine in the department's history. Citric acid - an additive to detergents, cosmetics, and foods - has a worldwide market value exceeding $1 billion a year, said Joel Klein Joel I. Klein is Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education, the largest public school system in the United States with over 1.1 million students in over 1,420 schools. , the agency's antitrust division chief. SOFTWARE UNIT: Wang Laboratories Wang Laboratories - Computer manufacturer, known for their office automation products. Quarterly sales $208M, profits $3M (Aug 1994). Inc. agreed to sell its imaging software operation to Kodak for $260 million in cash, continuing its transition from bankrupt computer maker to thriving service company.Wang was expected to use money from the sale to build its core computer service business. No job losses were expected, since Kodak planned to keep Wang Software intact. The announcement of the deal Wednesday came just after Wang acknowledged a 35 percent drop in profits to $4.5 million for the quarter ended Dec. 31. But the earnings were higher than projected, and Wang's shares rose 75 cents to close at $23.25 on the Nasdaq Stock Market Nasdaq stock market The first electronic stock market listing over 5000 companies. The Nasdaq stock market comprises two separate markets, namely the Nasdaq National Market, which trades large, active securities and the Nasdaq Smallcap Market that trades emerging growth companies. . STATE AGRICULTURE: In a potential blow to California agriculture, vast numbers of bees have drowned in recent weeks, overlooked casualties of California's severe winter floods. Tens of thousands of hives hives (urticaria), rash consisting of blotches or localized swellings (wheals) of the skin, caused by an allergic reaction (see allergy). The swelling is caused by distention of the skin capillaries and escape of serum and white cells into the skin and tissues. , set out along creek and river bottoms in the Central Valley, have been submerged or even washed away by rising waters. The drowning of the honeybee honeybee Broadly, any bee that makes honey (any insect of the tribe Apini, family Apidae); more strictly, one of the four species constituting the genus Apis. The term is usually applied to one species, the domestic honeybee (A. - hundreds of millions by even the most conservative estimates - is a financial blow to beekeepers, many of whom truck their insects from Arizona, Montana and even Florida to winter here. The death of so many of these tiny titans of agriculture also could bode ill for California's nearly $1 billion almond crop, the state's sixth-largest commodity. FORD'S EARNINGS UP:Ford Motor Co. reported higher earnings for the fourth quarter and all of 1996. It earned $4.4 billion mostly because Americans bought a lot of pickup trucks and sport-utility vehicles. CAPTION(S): 2 Charts Chart: (1--Color) DOW INDUSTRIALS (2--Color) BIZ FACTS SAVERS AND SPENDTHRIFTS Projected household savings rates, 1997 Knight-Ridder Tribune Graphics Network |
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