September 2,1998
Dow roars back, gaining 288 points
Second-highest gain ever brings indicators up after Monday's drop
NEW YORK (AP) - Wall Street
came roaring back Tuesday, with the
Dow Industrials recording its second
biggest point gain ever, a surge of 288
in response to a 512-point rout
! Monday.
In another day of wide swings,
the Dow Jones industrial average
jumped 143.41 as trading began,
soon retreated to a loss of 138.77,
then shot up in spurts, with the buy
ing picking up in the closing hour.
The Dow, which had plummeted
nearly 1,000 points in the past three
sessions alone, finished up 288.10 at
7,827.17, a 3.8 percent gain, in
extremely heavy trading, according
to preliminary figures.
At its high for the day in the final
half hour of trading, the Dow was up
358.90 at 7,897.97.
Broader indicators also shot high
er, including the technology-heavy
Nasdaq composite index, which was
regaining about half Monday’s record
plunge of 140.43 points.
At least two prominent strategists
seized upon Monday’s decline as a
buying opportunity.
Abby Joseph Cohen, the chief
market strategist at Goldman Sachs
& Co. and the most noted “bull” on
Wall Street, recommended that
investors shift available cash into
stocks. Prudential Securities chief
investment strategist Greg Smith also
raised his suggested stock allocation.
Monday’s 6.4 percent plunge by
the Dow was the second-biggest
point drop ever for Wall Street’s best
known indicator. Only the Oct. 27,
1997, plunge of 554 points was larg
er. But it was only the 25th largest
percentage drop and well behind the
22.6 percent collapse of “Black
Monday,” when it fell 508 points on
Oct. 19,1987.
Tuesday’s rebound was second
only to the 337.17-point gain of last
Oct. 28, the day after the record fall.
The percentage gain, while large, was
not a record.
The selloff Monday, a drop of
12.61 to 7,539.07, left the Dow own
19.3 percent from its July 7 record
high of9,337.97 and .7 percent below
where it began the year. The selling
spree, which accelerated in the final
hour of Monday’s session, brought
Wall Street plunging toward its first
bear market since 1990.
With Monday’s gain, the Dow
was up 81 points below the level at
the end of last year, ,908.25. But it
still was 16.2 percent below the July
record.
President Clinton on Monday
added his voice to efforts to restore
calm to shaken markets. “We believe
our fundamental economic policy is
sound,” he said, echoing comments
Monday by Treasury Secretary
Robert Rubin.
Stock markets in Asia and Europe
gave more ground Tuesday in the
aftermath of Monday’s slide on Wall
Street. But Japan’s stock market
closed sharply higher and European
markets cut their losses late in the
day.
Clinton to Russians:
no painless solutions
MU5L-UW (AP) - Witn a mes
sage of support but offering no finan
cial help, President Clinton urged
Russians on Tuesday to “reject the
failed policies of the past” in coping
with their current economic crisis.
“Given die frets before you, I have
to tell you that I do not believe there
* are any painless solutions,” Clinton
erg atMoscowlstate Umversity^of
International Relations. He repeatedly
said that Russia must “play by the
rules” of international commerce.
Clinton met earlier with Russian
President Boris Yeltsin in die first ses
sion of a two-dry summit unlikely to
deliver sweeping agreements from the
politically wounded presidents.
Despite the poor outlook, Yeltsin
declared just before meeting with
Clinton that “Russian-American rela
tions are developing successfully.” He
• greeted Clinton with a bear hug and
handshake in the Krem&i% presiden
$ dal study r':' ■ ■■ r - - *• >
With Russia’s economic turmoil
throwing the summit into uncertainty
Clinton addressed the crisis with
frankness, but also sympathy, saying
die country has had only seven years’
experience with market reform. In the
end, he said, Russia must find its own
solutions.
The first agreement to trickle out
of die Clinton-\fehsin meetings was a
joint pledge to eliminate some stock
piles of plutonium taken from dis
mantled missile warheads.
Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright said Clinton also would tell
Yeltsin that while Russia has U.S. sup
port, it cannot expect more interna
tional aid unless it sticks to reforms
that will produce a free market econo
-i‘1^ '
*iNobody expects theWest to keep
throwing money into this country if
they are not willing to undertake the
fundamental reforms, so it’s a combi
nation of holding out some carrots -
some money - and at the same time
making clear that there need to be
some fundamental changes,” Albright
said in an interview on ABC’s “Good
Morning America.”
Sen. Pete Domenici, R-NM., who
flew here with Clinton, told a reporter
the two presidents would sign an
agreement today to gpt rid of about 50
metric tons of plutonium on each side
and break down the weapons material
/ A draft of die leaders’joint state
ment said the plutonium would be
withdrawn in stages, with financing
arrangements to be set by year’s end.
“Measures to manage and reduce
such stockpiles are an essential ele
ment of irreversible arms reduction
efforts and necessary to ensure that
these materials do not become a pro
liferation risk,” the draft said.
*
Erin Gibson
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Microsoft still may be sued
Government urges judge not to drop case
WASHINGTON (AP) - In court
papers released Tuesday, the govern
ment leveled new accusations that
Microsoft moved illegally to smother
the market for a rival Internet browser
by Netscape.
It also said Microsoft illegally
tried to kill in its infancy a new tech
nology, called Java, that threatened to
supplant Windows as the world’s
dominant operating system.
The government also made pass
ing mention to Microsoft’s alleged
discussions with rivals Intel, Apple
Computer and RealNetworks as “part
of a pattern... to divide the market
and restrict or eliminate competi
tion.”
It said Microsoft tried to dissuade
Intel from continuing to develop soft
ware, tried to convince Apple not to
sell its competing QuickTime for
Windows and wanted promises from
RealNetworks that it wouldn’t share
technologies with Microsoft com
- petitors.
In its 89-page court filing, the
government contended that
. Microsoft “set out to eliminate the
potential threats posed by Netscape
and Java.” It said the company acted
“at the specific and pointed direction
of Microsoft CEO Bill Gates.”
Gates, who was questioned by
government lawyers two days last
week, “displayed a particular failure
of recollection at his deposition,” the
court filing said. Gates was scheduled
for a third day of questioning Tuesday.
The Justice Department and the
20 states suing Microsoft urged the
judge to reject company’s request to
dismiss the most important parts of
the pending antitrust case. The docu
ment was filed late Monday and pub
licly released Tuesday.
The latest allegations brought by
the government don’t substantively
broaden its lawsuit against Microsoft.r
Claims about the company’s actions
toward Netscape and Java were
included in its original filing, but not
with the level of detail afforded by
Tuesday’s court documents.
For example, the government
accused Microsoft of cutting deals
with Intuit, which makes personal
finance software, and with Apple to
stifle the market for Netscape and
Java, a technology developed by rival
Sun Microsystems.
“Microsoft’s dealings with Apple
are illustrative of how far Microsoft
was willing to go to limit Netscape’s
opportunities and to stifle Java,” the
government said, adding that the
company’s effort “is particularly
telling since Apple represents the
main alternative to desktop PC’s run
ning Microsoft Windows.”
The trial is scheduled to start
Sept 23.
Governments hatch IRA plan
BELFAST, Northern Ireland
(AP) — The British and Irish gov
ernments unveiled plans Tuesday
for a crackdown on IRA dissidents
who engineered the deadliest
bombing in three decades in
Northern Ireland.
The plans are expected to be
approved in emergency parliamen
tary sessions this week.
Also, in a carefully worded
statement tied to Thursday’s visit of
President Clinton, Sinn Fein party
leader Gerry Adams proclaimed
that “the violence we have seen
must be for all of us now a thing cf
the past, over, done with and gone.”
The statement represented a
significant rhetorical shift for his
IRA-allied party and was wel
comed by the British and Irish
prime ministers, Tony Blair and
Bertie Ahem.
But it fell short of demands
from Protestant politicians for the
Irish Republican Army to declare
specifically that its “war” to desta
bilize Northern Ireland was over -
and for the outlawed group to prove
it by starting to disarm, a goal con
tained in April's peace agreement.
The proposed crackdown
restricts the right to silence for ter
rorist suspects, allows courts to
convict suspects based chiefly on
testimony from senior detectives
and empowers authorities to seize
property from people who lend sup
port to truce-defying paramilitary
groups.
Britain’s version of the bill was
hastily drafted in response to the
Aug. 15 car bomb in Omagh,
Northern Ireland, which killed 28
people and wounded more than
330.
That attack was committed by
IRA dissidents opposed to the par
ent organization’s July 1997 truce.
In his statement, Adams
appealed for Northern Ireland lead
ers “to work politically to make the
Omagh bombing the last violent
incident in our country.
II
Northwest lays off 177;
strike reaches fourth day
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -
Northwest Airline^ laid off 177 workers
Tuesday and said many of its 50,000
employees could be next as a strike by
pilots readied a fourth day.
Spokeswoman Marta Laughlin said
162 dispatchers and 15 meteorologists
would be laid off by the end of the day.
Northwest put a decision on its other
employees on hold until today, she said.
The layoffs came before U.S.
Transportation Secretary Rodney
Slater met with Northwest chief execu
tive John Dasbuig and union leaders in
Washington and urged than to resume
negotiations.
Laughlin said the meeting in
Washington could affect the timetable
for layoffs.
“As a company, the last resort we
want to look to is layoffs,” Laughlin
said. Once workers are laid off it will
take longer to restart the airline, she
noted.
Craig Merrilees, a Teamsters
spokesman, said officials of the flight
attendants’ 11,000-member Local2000
were notified Monday that die compa
ny planned to begin making furlough
calls Tuesday.
Japan protests firing
of North Korean missile
TOKYO (AP)-Tokyo issued a for
mal protest Tuesday against North
Korea for firing a missile over Japan
and sent military ships to die spot in the
Pacific Ocean where it was believed to
have landed
•••' The missile launch Monday
renewed worries over security in Asia
and raised serious questions about die
adequacy of Japan’s missile detection
and anti-missile systems.
Government spokesman Sadaaki
Numata said Japan did not know about
the missile laundi until it was informed
bytheUS.mililary.
Japan also abandoned its yearlong
offer to resume talks aimed at establish
ing tfylomatic ties with North Korea, a
Foreign Ministry official said, speaking
on condition of anonymity.
Committee finds no evidence
veterans were exposed to gas
WASHINGTON (AP) - There is no
evidence to support the theory that
mysteriously ill U.S. soldiers who
fought in the Persian Gulf War were
exposed to nerve gas or chemical
weapons, a Senate committee conclud
ed.
At the same time, the Senate
Veterans’ Affairs Committee argued in
a report released Tuesday that the
Pentagon may have overestimated that
as many as 100,000 soldiers were
exposed to chemical weapons.
The report Mamed the Pentagon for
inadequate record keeping and prepara
tion for possible biological and chemi
cal weapons attacks - shortcomings
that continue today, according to the
committee.
*1 am particularly concerned that if
we found ourselves in a similar situa
tion (Tuesday), the departments of
Defense and Veterans’ Affairs would
prove ill-prepared to respond to the
needs of our men and women in uni
form,” said Sen. Alien Specter, R-Pa.,
chairman of the committee.
