Market briefing---Matt (slow)
MCI---Erin (slow)
NYSE---Deb (fast)
worldcom’s reorganization plan and the company’s bankruptcy dates back to june 2002. it was the biggest in u.s. history, wiping out $180 billion in market value. our erin burnett has been following this story.
>> m.c.i. will come out of chapter 11. a bankruptcy judge approved the recovery plan, allowing thome erase $36 billion in debt. the company will carry just $5 billion in debt when it formally emerges from bankruptcy, which analysts say will be by march. world com will pay some creditors 36 cents on delart. a big part of this story, though is that a reinvigorated and solvent m.c.i. will impact some of the biggest play ners the telecom industry.
>> the usual suspects are, of course, at&t and sprint phone group. but as a regional bell, like verizon, s.b.c., bell south and the others have tried to move into the enterprise, they’re going to be hit with renewed competition from m.c.i. or heightened competition.
>> those enterprise contracts are bundled data and services sold to corporations. and they’re lucrative. in addition to wireless, enterprise services are the telecom industry’s biggest growth driver. verizon told investors that enterprise would be a crucial part of its future. verizon who signed 800 enterprise contracts. m.c.i. could issue a price war in the enterprise areen in order to meet its revenue growth target of 2%.
>> you could see a short-determine drastic price war by m.c.i. to gain customers in the hopes of making money long term.
>> there’s one other side effect we wanted to note. that’s new m.c.i. could spark industry consolidation. some analysts believe m.c.i. itself could be a takeover target once the company has had a few quarters to prove itself. now, make sure you tune into bloomberg tv. we’re going to have more of this story on monday when michael capellas will be our kest at 1:00 p.m. new york time. that’s all we have for now. back to you.
>> thank. we’ll definitely tune in. just an unbelievable story that continues to develop, including with putnam investment, which has now lost $4 billion worth of assets since regulators accused it of allowing money managers to engage in improper fund trading. three clinets, pennsylvania, rhode island, and iowa fired putnam. the states had employed putnam to manage part of their pension funds. putnam is one of a dozen firms named in the widening muechure fund investigation. regulators say money manager bought and sold putnam funds in that way that siphoned off money from regular investors. elliott spitzer began the investigation. he’s going to appear in congress on monday and call for new regulations. and the securities and exchange commission will propose its own trading restrictions by the end of november. the s.e.c. may insist that the fund companys be chaired by an outsider. we’ll continue to follow the probe of the mutual fund industry through the weekend. then on monday, new york state attorney elliott spitzer, as we said, will be one of several witnesses appearing before a senate committee on capitol hill. they’ll be discussing alleged trading abuses in the mutual fund industry and potential regulatory reforms. among those joining spitzer, s.e.c. enforcement director steven cut ler and former vanguard chief executive john boggle. live coverage begin 10g:30 a.m. east coast time monday right here on bloomberg television. well, the market didn’t seem to scare away investors today. deborah kostroun with more on today’s session. deb?
>> well, matt, some of the things that we saw not only in today’s session but also throughout the past week, we actually broke a few records. kind of week a little bit without fanfare. and one of those records that we’re going to be looking at next week, the dow jones industrial average making an intraday high for the year. 98.39 that’s going to be the next level of this market. we closed on that high. that would have been very important. but that will be the next area the dow will be looking at. for the week, some pretty good gains going on, not only for the week, but for the month. the s&p up 2.2%. the dow jones industrial average, up 2.4%. that is our biggest ghain about a month. and kevin bannon with bank of new york saying that the strong earnings that we’ve had really is based on higher revenue and not just cost cutting so. that’s really good news. he also says the g.d.p. that we got yesterday went a long way to convince skeptics that we do have a lot of stimulus in place. in fact, so many people still talking about that g.d.p. number, expanding. we did see growth at its fastest rate in 20 years. g.d.p. coming in 7.2%. economists were only expecting 6%. and now it leaves some traders and investors i’m talk to saying they’re looking at g.d.p. numbers for 2004. maybe we working some of those number. we weren’t expecting this much growth in the third quarter. we’re also still looking at some pretty hefty gains in the dow and s&p so far year to date. in fact, if you take a look at the to numbers, s&p up 19%, dow up 18%. and nasdaq, big winner. still up 45 pmps and all of these big gains, they’ve really kind of helped us in the i.p.o. market. the rally prompted about three i.p.o.’s in today’s session alone take a look at how they closed out in today’s session. the i.p.o. market just in today’s session has really been lagging here. take a look at 2003, we are falling far behind to what we saw in 2002, 2001, even 2 thourk. thf year, only a paltry $7.4 billion. however, at least in today’s session, we saw quite a bit of that. cigna, this was within of the stocks that were most actively traded. one of the biggest gainers here at the new york stock exchange. this is a number three health insurer. they returned to a profit in the third quarter. they had a net income of $1.39, compared to a net loss of $6.29 year to date that stock is up 37%. back to you in the studio. matt?
>> deb, let’s go right from the new york stock exchange to the nasdaq market site. and none other than julie hyman who’s there.
>> let’s take a look at where the nasdaq finished the week. on the week, it was still up, actually, for the first week in three, it ended with
>> gain of 3.6% for the week. 8.1% rise for the month. and a 45% gain for the year. the nasdaq is still the best performing of the three major inddeeze. also, we should note october turned out to be the best month for the nasdaq since the month of may. also, all seven industry groups within the nasdaq were up for both the week and the month. the telecommunications group was leading those. as for today’s stories, the big story today, teva agreing to buy sicor for $3.4 billion in cash and stock . sicor specializes in injectable drugs which teva c.e.o. said would complement its own offerings. teva finished down 79. american power conversion makes power supply products. it finished the day up 13% after it said third quarter net income rose 33%. sales were up 111%. and that is a net income figure per share. matt, back over to you. have a great halloween.
>> great, julie, thank you very much for that. well, let’s check out the numbers here if we can. as we’ve been talking about. stocks posting their best week in a month. you see really little change in terms of percentages. 0.1% move for the dow and 073% for the s&p. the nasdaq down just half a point there today. that works out to―well, really unchanged statistically. 0.02%. take a look at volume here today. 1.4 billion shares. almost evenly matched volume there. slightly favoring the advancing stocks . similar situation situation -- or reverse .situation there at the nasdaq. 1.8 billion shares trading hands. and we look at the broader indexes here, the wilshire 5000. also little changed, finishing out the week up 0.3%. fantasticed income we go. we saw bonds on the rise here today with those yields falling. the 10-year down to 4.29%. five-year note also rising. sending its yield lower. same story for the three and two. stocks close higher for the week, as we said. but there’s growing concern.
