BIZWATCH : MARKETS.MARKET LOGIC: 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. finished the week with a gain of 75.36 but the index barely budged Friday. Analysts said there was little motivation for new buying in Buying in has several meanings. In the securities market it refers to a process by which the buyer of securities, whose seller fails to deliver the securities contracted for, can 'buy in' the securities from a third party with the defaulting seller to make good. a pricey market that's already ridden a wave of encouraging economic reports well into record territory. ``It's a meaningless day in terms of setting any agenda for where we're going,'' said John Cleland John Cleland (baptised September 24, 1709 – January 23, 1789) was an English novelist most famous and infamous as the author of Fanny Hill: or, the Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure. , chief investment strategist at Security Benefit Group in Topeka, Kan. MEMO YET ANOTHER NET SERVICE: Pacific Bell will launch an Internet access See how to access the Internet. service Tuesday, joining other phone companies in the race to sign up computer users.Californians can choose between a pay-as-you-go service with a maximum monthly cap of $19.95, or a monthly fee of $9.95 for 10 hours of use with a $1 hourly fee for every additional hour. Pacific Bell Internet will waive its $14.95 start-up fee and offer a free month of unlimited use for customers who sign up through Sept. 1. The service and pricing will also be available to customers outside of Pacific Bell's territory. THAT'S THE TICKET: Factory orders for big-ticket durable goods durable goods Goods, such as appliances and automobiles, that have a useful life over a number of periods. Firms that produce durable goods are often subject to wide fluctuations in sales and profits. Also called consumer durables. dropped 1.9 percent in April, the fifth decline in seven months. The decline was led by plunging aircraft orders, which often are volatile, but many other components were down as well, including orders for communications equipment, the Commerce Department said Friday. Orders are considered a key gauge of the nation's manufacturing sector, and weakness usually means slack production and slower job growth. PRICE-FIXING FORMULA: Abbott Laboratories Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT) is a diversified pharmaceuticals and health care company. It has over 65,000 employees and operates in 130 countries. The corporate headquarters are in Abbott Park, Illinois, a neighborhood of North Chicago, Illinois. , the maker of Similac and Isomil infant formulas, has agreed to pay $32.5 million to settle price-fixing allegations in 17 states. Abbott denied any wrongdoing wrong·do·er n. One who does wrong, especially morally or ethically. wrong  do and
said Friday that it settled to avoid further legal costs. The deal
represents Abbott's effort to put behind it years of litigation An action brought in court to enforce a particular right. The act or process of bringing a lawsuit in and of itself; a judicial contest; any dispute.When a person begins a civil lawsuit, the person enters into a process called litigation. over baby formula in which it and other companies had been accused of conspiring to raise their prices and to stave off competition in the lucrative formula market. BANK LOSSES: Swallowing bitter financial medicine, several of Japan's biggest banks announced record operating profits, then used the money to pay off bad loans dating to the real estate boom of the 1980s. Eleven top Japanese commercial banks announced Friday that their core operations earned a profit. But then seven of them posted net losses after allocating money for write-offs of soured loans. The most striking case was Fuji Bank The Fuji Bank, Limited (株式会社富士銀行 . It reported a whopping net loss of $4.02 billion for the year ending March 31, yet its operating profits surged 62 percent to $4.36 billion. TAKE NOTE SEMINAR: ``International Investing: Diversification Through Global Investing'', a free lunchtime seminar, is presented by Merrill Lynch at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday at 505 N. Brand Blvd., Suite 700, Glendale. For reservations, call (818) 551-6529. CAPTION(S): Chart Chart: BIZ FACTS Investing in the U.S. |
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