IT'S A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN RUKEYSER'S NEIGHBORHOOD - WALL STREET : PBS LEGEND DOESN'T DISCUSS ECONOMICS; NO, HE TALKS MONEY.

Byline: Bruce Meyerson Associated Press 

Louis Rukeyser's neighborhood on public television is much rougher than the one Mister Rogers roams, but the host of ``Wall Street Week'' has managed to retain a cuddly demeanor anyhow.

Without the help of sweaters or goldfish, Rukeyser has soothed and bemused his impressionable adult audience for a quarter century with an eloquent yet cornball approach to the often intimidating world of money.

Long before mutual funds were fab or there were enough business news junkies to justify a TV channel devoted to the subject, there was ``Wall Street Week with Louis Rukeyser.''

Since late 1970, Rukeyser has been gathering with assorted business figures in plush living room furniture for a playful chat on Wall Street and Washington, sprinkled with predictions and stock tips.

``When we started, the consensus was that I was an idiot,'' said Rukeyser, 63. ``I'd been London bureau chief for ABC News, I'd been Paris correspondent. People asked, `Why was I giving all that up to go into the dark hole of economics and finance?' ''

The answer was fairly simple for a man whose father was a financial journalist for nearly seven decades.

``If you say `economics' to the average person, the chin will hit the chest, the eyelids will get heavy,'' Rukeyser said. ``But if you say `money,' the eyes pop open, the nostrils flare, and you have their full attention.''

Although his tone is decidedly tea-time, Rukeyser is fiercely stoic about his mission to help ``the little guy'' sift through Wall Street's ``fakers'' for sound advice - a job he considers sorely ignored by his competitors, especially amid today's swell of first-time investors.

``I represent the customer, not the fat cat,'' said Rukeyser. ``I'm trying to give people a better handle on what's happening to their money and everything on the national scene that contributes to that.''

When Rukeyser says everything, he means everything, as evidenced by his weekly detours from economics and corporate doings. In late February, for example, he devoted much of his opening commentary - a ``Tonight Show'' type monologue - to Pat Buchanan's unexpected political successes.

``The mood of the country affects the markets. And if Pat Buchanan became president, that would have significant economic and financial impact,'' said Rukeyser, rejecting the suggestion he strays too far afield.

Little has changed over the years except Rukeyser's wooly, wavy mane, now whiter and thinner. But that hair, like his weekly monologue, is still ``all original material,'' he said, responding to a viewer suggestion he celebrate the show's 25th anniversary with a montage of his alleged toupees.

Although some find him goofy, many revel in his deadpan delivery and verse-filled prose (much like the ``Gotcha Brigade'' in William Safire's New York Times column, some of Rukeyser's fans enjoy searching for slip-ups in his citations).

``God help him if he takes a quote from Aristotle and says it belongs to (St. Thomas) Aquinas. He'll get a blizzard of mail,'' said Robert Stovall, a longtime panelist and president of Stovall/Twenty-First Advisers.

Either way, Rukeyser's proud of his comedy stylings, which ``a professional comedian once called the biggest high-wire act in American television because I have no audience and I have no laugh track.''

But he bristles at the notion that he's a pundit of puns. ``We often go weeks without a pun, contrary to public opinion,'' he said, stressing that only his viewer-mail segment ``is laden with a succession of puns, but we're talking about 15 seconds of a 30-minute program.'' Indeed, if a letter mentions forestry products, there are references to sap; if it's brewing, suds and froth abound.

Rukeyser's guests range from relatively unknown money managers and industry analysts to marquee names such as Malcolm Forbes, John Kenneth Galbraith and mutual fund gurus John Templeton and Peter Lynch.

One of the show's early guests was Ross Perot, who ``was going to save Wall Street, just as he more recently has been trying to save America,'' said Rukeyser, explaining that the billionaire has just purchased a brokerage firm so he could ``do more for the small investor.''

``I had the same problem that people had with him more recently,'' Rukeyser said. ``When you try and pin him down on specifics, it all begins to dissolve a bit. And the only thing specific I could get out of him was that he was gonna have all his brokers get short `navy officer' haircuts.''

Although discouraging words are seldom heard on ``Wall Street Week,'' a few guests - mostly money managers - have left angry.

``My offense in all those cases was exactly the same: I cited their actual forecasting record as opposed to the one they advertised,'' said Rukeyser, who smirks and giggles excitedly as he retells his favorite anecdotes.

``If we have somebody on with something worth listening to, we try and learn from them. If we have someone on who's trying to con people, we try and audit them.''

Rukeyser's favorite guest was his now-deceased father, Merryle S. Rukeyser, whom he tenderly describes as ``the boy wonder of financial journalism.'' Viewers apparently agreed, electing the elder Rukeyser to the program's hall of fame.

Born and raised in the New York City area during the Depression, Rukeyser wanted to be a journalist too, but the son had no intention of following so directly in his dad's footsteps.

After graduating from Princeton University in 1954, he spent most of the next 11 years as a political and foreign correspondent for the Sun newspapers of Baltimore.

In 1965, after serving as the Sun's London bureau chief and chief Asia correspondent, Rukeyser switched to television with ABC News in Europe. And as he covered wars and other foreign events, he found himself drawn to what he considered an essential, but rarely covered angle of most stories.

``It occurred to me that there was no way to understand what was happening in this world if you didn't understand the economics,'' he said. As a result, ``I found myself getting a reputation I had deliberately avoided, which was as an economic expert.''

But Rukeyser gradually embraced the role and in 1968, he moved to New York to become ABC's first economic editor, a post he held for five years. His whimsical style apparently struck a chord at Maryland Public Television, which approached him in 1970 to do a show on Wall Street and the economy.

Few programs have been as enduring on public TV. Only ``Sesame Street,'' ``Mister Rogers' Neighborhood'' and ``Tony Brown's Journal'' have earlier beginnings, and Rukeyser's longstanding credibility has enabled him to launch two successful newsletters.

Although one of those newsletters is devoted to mutual funds, Rukeyser advocates investing at least some money in individual stocks (his first investment, at age 17, was the purchase of three shares of General Motors with $285 he saved as a high school sports reporter).

``Make two piles - one for (mutual funds), one for you,'' he said, attributing several advantages to ``your pile.''

``First, you never learn from somebody else's mistakes. Second, no one cares about your money quite as much as you do. Third, nobody knows your situation quite as well as you; nobody knows whether you want to take taxable gains or not that year - in a mutual fund you have no choice.''

Most importantly, he said, ``Why should somebody else have all the fun with your money?''

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Photo

Photo: (Color) Louis Rukeyser has gathered with business ty pes to talk Wall Street for a quarter century.

Associated Press