Investor's Business Daily articles from September 2001

Investor's Business Daily archives from September 2001

Tough Lesson In Education Market Leaves Mattel In No Mood To Play.(A)(COMPANY IN THE NEWS)
September 4, 2001... Byline: Chris Woodard Mattel Inc. would probably like to forget its 1999 acquisition of The Learning Co. But the deal almost certainly will live on at business schools as a textbook disaster. Desperate for the glamour and fast growth...

Don't Buy Before Market Gives The Signal.(A)(INVESTOR'S CORNER)
September 4, 2001... Byline: Jonah Keri It's tempting, sure. Weeks and months go by in a bear market. Finding a solid breakout becomes as tough as spotting a beach in Kansas. When you finally get a good-looking move, it can be tough to let it fly by. Yet...

IBD'S TOP 10.(A)
September 4, 2001... Chicago Factories Weaken, But Survey Hints Of Hope 1The Chicago Purchasing Managers index rose to 43.5 in August from July's dismal 38.0. That's still the 11th straight reading below the boom-bust 50 level, meaning the region's...

AFTER THE CLOSE.(TO THE POINT)
September 4, 2001... NTT DOCOMO will launch its third-generation cell phone service in Japan on Oct. 1, a Japanese newspaper said. XEROX settled a suit with Copier Services Unlimited. Copier Services will pay an undisclosed amount in patent infringement fees....

BUSINESS NEWS.(TO THE POINT)
September 4, 2001... TELECOM CenturyTel backers want talks Many large shareholders want the rural telecom to talk with Alltel. But they said ill feelings between the firms make that unlikely, even if Alltel sweetens its $5.83 billion cash-and-stock bid....

BUSINESS NEWS.(TO THE POINT)
September 4, 2001... CONSUMER Procter & Gamble, Unilever talk about hairy case of espionage The consumer product giants discussed P&G's covert efforts to gain details about Unilever's hair care products, which include Finesse and Thermasilk. P&G could...

BUSINESS NEWS.(TO THE POINT)
September 4, 2001... TRANSPORTATION GM makes new bid for Daewoo The offer excluded the bankrupt automaker's largest and oldest plant, which employs almost half of its South Korean work force. That plant has been a stumbling block. The talks continue. GM...

THE ECONOMY.(TO THE POINT)
September 4, 2001... ECRI economic index unchanged The Economic Cycle Research Institute's leading index broke a four-week losing streak when it came in unchanged at 119.3 for the week ended Aug. 24. But the index is still near its April low of 118.2. "If we...

TRENDS & INNOVATIONS.(TO THE POINT)
September 4, 2001... Drug-resistant HIV strains on the rise By 2005, nearly half of HIV patients in San Francisco won't respond to drugs now used to treat the disease, said researchers at the Los Angeles and San Francisco campuses of the University of...

TRENDS & INNOVATIONS.(TO THE POINT)
September 4, 2001... Teens who have a second pregnancy are nearly three times more likely to have a premature baby or stillbirth than older women, Scottish doctors told the British Medical Journal. German scientists developed a genetically modified tomato that...

WASHINGTON.(TO THE POINT)
September 4, 2001... "Debategate' aide gets year in jail A judge sentenced a low-level aide to George W. Bush's presidential campaign to a year in jail for mailing secret debate material to Al Gore's campaign and then lying about it to a grand jury. Juanita...

THE WORLD.(TO THE POINT)
September 4, 2001... Arafat not target, Israel asserts Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said he would not single out Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for attack under any circumstance. "Not because he isn't involved in terror," Ben-Eliezer said,...

How To Win Despite Trip-Ups.(LEADERS & SUCCESS)(IBD'S 10 SECRETS TO SUCCESS)
September 4, 2001... Byline: Amy Alexander Everyone makes mistakes -- it's what you do afterward that counts. Just ask sports psychologists Stephen Russo and William Gayton. They've helped athletes from weekend warriors to top professionals learn to dust...

Inventor Howard Head His Determination Revolutionized The Way We Ski And Play Tennis.(LEADERS & SUCCESS)
September 4, 2001... Byline: David Saito-Chung Howard Head despised the concept of marketing. The best way to appeal to the masses, he thought, was simple: Come up with the best product. "I think marketing is a dirty word. I've never liked it," Head told...

TECHBITS.(INTERNET & TECHNOLOGY)
September 4, 2001... Byline: Reinhardt Krause More Telecoms Swapping Debt For Equity Swapping debt for equity is becoming trendy for phone companies. It's one way for money-losing firms to stay afloat. In debt-for-equity swaps, companies issue...

CHANNEL STUFFING Report Says Enterasys Boosted Product Shipments.(INTERNET & TECHNOLOGY)
September 4, 2001... Byline: Mike Angell Stuffing a turkey is good. Stuffing the channel isn't. In fact, accusing a company of "channel stuffing" is roughly the equivalent of calling the company a turkey. A Morgan Stanley report puts that charge to...

TECH STOCKS Bearish Analysts Say They'll Remain Gloomy For Now.(INTERNET & TECHNOLOGY)
September 4, 2001... Byline: Jed Graham If investors have to start ignoring bad news for tech stocks to rally, they'll get plenty of opportunities in the coming weeks. The bleak midquarter updates last week from Sun Microsystems Inc. and Novellus Systems...

TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH FIRMS Researchers Scale Back Targets In face of criticism and a slumping economy, analysts lower revenue forecasts.(INTERNET & TECHNOLOGY)
September 4, 2001... Byline: Doug Tsuruoka Edgy about their credibility after the dot-com meltdown, researchers are changing the way they measure the Internet's growth. The move comes in the face of growing criticism. Like financial analysts, technology...

Microsoft Vs. Sun Micro Might Affect Java, PC Users.(INTERNET & TECHNOLOGY)(COMPUTERS MADE PLAIN)
September 4, 2001... Byline: Lynn Walford You may have read about Microsoft Corp.'s decision not to include Java in its new Windows XP operating system. Is this a big deal? You've probably heard Java mentioned in the past and know it's not coffee. But if...

MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY Doctors Prescribed System For Avoiding Drug Errors.(INTERNET & TECHNOLOGY)
September 4, 2001... Byline: Donna Howell Does that scribbled prescription say Aldoril or Ativan? The difference could be life or death. A 50-milligram dose of the first drug lowers blood pressure. The other drug treats insomnia. But "boy, if you got 50...

Video Game Firm Expecting Rebound.(INTERNET & TECHNOLOGY)(Q & A)
September 4, 2001... Byline: Doug Tsuruoka Game console makers Microsoft Corp., Sony Corp. and Nintendo Co. are going toe to toe to make their hardware the favored way of playing video games. But the real winners in that battle might be the software...

CORINTHIAN COLLEGES INC. /Santa Ana, California For-Profit College's Stock Plunge Shakes Street.(THE NEW AMERICA)
September 4, 2001... Byline: Amy Reeves In the down market, education stocks seemed to be one of the few safe havens for investors. While other sectors stumbled, for-profit colleges kept beating views and raising forecasts. So quite a chill ripped...

AMSURG CORP. /Nashville, Tennesee Rapid Expansion Plan Keeps These Guys Busy.(THE NEW AMERICA)
September 4, 2001... Byline: Amy Reeves We're only eight months into 2001, but you could say AmSurg Corp. already has had a year's worth of growth. The company owns and operates outpatient clinics. In previous statements, officials announced plans to open...

INTERMAGNETICS GENERAL CORP. /Latham, New York Power Crisis Eyes Relief From . . . Medical Biz?(THE NEW AMERICA)
September 4, 2001... Byline: Robin M. Grugal Albany, N.Y., has become the testing ground for what someday might be the solution to our nation's troubled power grid. Soon, 24,000 homes and businesses in the city will get power that travels underground via...

NYSE Stocks In The News.(A)
September 4, 2001... Byline: Jonah Keri Meritage zoomed out of a three-month base May 7 on huge volume. The stock flashed a powerful follow-through the next day, but stalled soon after amid a struggling market. After a short consolidation, Meritage took off...

WASHINGTON'S DINOSAURS.(ISSUES & INSIGHTS)(EDITORIALS)
September 4, 2001... The FedEx shipments of U.S. Postal Service packages proceeded quietly, which is the way most commerce works. We've heard no one say it, but the deal implies that the government can't deliver the mail as well as the private sector. The...

GREENSPAN'S ADMISSION.(ISSUES & INSIGHTS)(EDITORIALS)
September 4, 2001... The "wealth effect" -- the impact rising stock prices have on the economy -- has been hotly debated in recent years. And nowhere more hotly than at the Federal Reserve. Now we get a stunning admission: The Fed doesn't fully understand it. ...

BOOST MILITARY, NOT PORK.(ISSUES & INSIGHTS)(EDITORIALS)
September 4, 2001... President Bush is calling on Congress to approve an additional $18 billion in military spending next year. But the prodigal spenders in Congress have suddenly turned cheap. They say the shrinking surplus forbids the request. It doesn't....

A Vicious Circle: Reparations Claim Puts Blacks' Fate In Whites' Hands.(ISSUES & INSIGHTS)(BRAIN TRUST)
September 4, 2001... Byline: Michael Medved Why now? That is both the most pertinent and the most perplexing question about the increasingly strident international demands for slavery reparations. The obsession with slavery only intensifies as the...

Tough Times Boost Union Action,But Gains Could Prove Temporary.(ISSUES & INSIGHTS)(Q & A)
September 4, 2001... Byline: Joseph Guinto Two headlines will have likely stood out this Labor Day: "Terrible Traffic" and "Worker Woes." Traffic troubles are an annual event over the summer's last big holiday. But workers haven't faced such serious job...

KEY FUND HOLDINGS.(MAKING MONEY IN MUTUALS)
September 4, 2001... Key Fund Holdings / JDA Software was a top new buy and Atlantic Coast Air Holdings was a top holding of Meridian Growth Fund in its latest reporting period. JDA has been in a four-week base since hitting a peak of 22.94 on Aug. 8. It's now 18%...

StockJungle's Fund Moves To Extinct List Community Intelligence Fund joins OpenFund as failed experiment.(MAKING MONEY IN MUTUALS)(INVESTMENT TRENDS)
September 4, 2001... Byline: Dan Moreau The tribe has spoken, and StockJungle Community Intelligence Fund is off the market. StockJungle.com announced late last month it was liquidating the 2-year-old experiment. StockJungle's claim was that you had a say...

Neuberger Berman Genesis Leans On Value Fund, up 5.9% this year, has owned Fair, Isaac more than 1 1/2 Years.(MAKING MONEY IN MUTUALS)(FUND PROFILE)
September 4, 2001... Byline: Nancy Gondo Fashion trends may go in and out of style -- but so do mutual funds. Value funds have been in vogue since mid-2000, when growth funds came crashing down with the Nasdaq. The late 1990s were lean for most value...

The Real Most Active - NASDAQ.(B)
September 4, 2001... Byline: Christina Wise The Nasdaq shot north in the first few hours of trading Friday, but saw most of its gains slip away. It closed with a gain of just 0.8%. Still, that was good enough to snap its four-day losing streak. Downgrades...

Where The Big Money's Flowing - NASDAQ.(B)
September 4, 2001... 5078B44.50PriceSmart PSMT43.00+1.7281+630 9192B29.50IndtBkMI IBCP28.74+0.53152+354 7992B16.95Inter Tel oINTL16.00+0.59514+290 7883C23.50GntvaHlth GTIV19.55+0.61243+170 9677B18.55Embrex EMBX16.70+0.5886+138 ...

NASDAQ Stocks In The News.(B)
September 4, 2001... Byline: Christina Wise Compared with the whipsaw patterns of many other stocks on the market, Cheesecake Factory's 38-week base has been a fairly calm affair. The stock hit a new high on July 23, then pulled back to form a handle. Such...

First Data Remakes Western Union Into Lean, Mean Fighting Machine.(A)(MANAGING THE SUCCESSFUL COMPANY)
September 5, 2001... Byline: Marilyn Alva A group of Western Union employees came together last spring to find a way to more quickly enroll the agents it licenses for money-transfer operations. As a first step, team leaders from Western Union's parent,...

Successful Investors Follow All The Rules.(A)(INVESTOR'S CORNER)
September 5, 2001... Byline: Monika Tjia In any serious project, following a set of rules can be trying. It's easy to use only the ones that you like and ditch the others. But if you want to succeed in an investing system, stick to all the rules. Drop a...

IBD'S TOP 10.(A)
September 5, 2001... Factory Sector Stabilizing, NAPM Survey Suggests 1The National Association of Purchasing Management's activity index shot up to 47.9 in August from July's 43.6. The surge gives hope factories' slide is near bottom, or at least their...

AFTER THE CLOSE.(TO THE POINT)
September 5, 2001... DELTA AIR LINES urged the Transportation Department to defer approval of the proposed American Airlines-British Airways pact until other U.S. carriers are assured access at London's Heathrow Airport. AMERICAN AIRLINES traffic fell 0.6% in...

BUSINESS NEWS.(TO THE POINT)
September 5, 2001... TELECOM GEAR Ericsson sees dark days ahead The Swedish wireless gear maker said the ailing telecom industry is unlikely to recover next year. Ericsson could only give a "very, very early indication" for 2002, but saw "no clear signs of...

BUSINESS NEWS.(TO THE POINT)
September 5, 2001... ENERGY Devon to buy gas firm Anderson Devon Energy will buy Canadian natural gas firm Anderson Exploration for $3.4 billion cash, or $25.80 a share. The deal creates the largest U.S. oil and gas producer. Devon will assume $1.2 billion...

BUSINESS NEWS.(TO THE POINT)
September 5, 2001... FINANCE Providian cuts 2001, 2002 outlook Providian Financial sees 2001 profit of $3.20 to $3.25 a share. Analysts expected $3.28. Its old forecast was $3.20 to $3.40. The subprime credit card issuer cited slower consumer sales, softer...

THE ECONOMY.(TO THE POINT)
September 5, 2001... Chance of recession is retreating, Chicago Fed index rise suggests The Chicago Federal Reserve's National Activity Index rose to -0.50 in July from a revised -1.10 in June. Its three-month moving average rose to -0.82 in July from...

WASHINGTON.(TO THE POINT)
September 5, 2001... Powell hails the progress in talks by U.S., Mexico on immigration Secretary of State Colin Powell said the two sides are ready to move from principles to specifics. Powell, accompanied by Mexican Foreign Secretary Jorge Castaneda,...

THE WORLD.(TO THE POINT)
September 5, 2001... Salvaging U.N. parley on racism occupies delegates after U.S. exit The European Union and South Africa joined forces to try resolving the language dispute that prompted a U.S. and Israeli walkout. References to the Israeli-Palestinian...

7. Focusing On Campus.(LEADERS & SUCCESS)(IBD'S 10 SECRETS TO SUCCESS)
September 5, 2001... Byline: Amy Alexander Shorter days. Red treetops. The roar of a football crowd. Must be fall, and that means a slew of students are going away to college. If ever there's a time for making the most of hours and cash, this is it. Being...

Physical Therapy Pioneer Sister Elizabeth Kenny Her Dedication Helped Thousands Of Children Stand On Their Own.(LEADERS & SUCCESS)
September 5, 2001... Byline: Kathryn Linderman It was 1911, and Sister Elizabeth Kenny had her first encounter with a patient's infantile paralysis, or polio. After examining a little girl with twisted and deformed legs, Kenny sent her advising doctor a...

Writer E.B. White Keen Focus Made His Prose Some Of The Finest.(LEADERS & SUCCESS)
September 5, 2001... Byline: Christopher L. Tyner The best, E.B. White believed, often lies in the simple. For White, that meant simple, clear sentences. He wasn't interested in fame. He didn't seek great riches. He especially didn't want to be known as a...

Wisdom To Live By . . .(LEADERS & SUCCESS)
September 5, 2001... ON CITIZENSHIP Question everything. Every stripe, every star, every word spoken. Everything. Ernest J. Gaines, writer ON DETAILS Small ills are the fountains of most of our groans. Men trip not on mountains, they stumble on...

TECHBITS.(INTERNET & TECHNOLOGY)
September 5, 2001... Byline: Peter Benesh Some Wireless Users Aren't Chicken To Call For Help Emergency dispatchers across the U.S. are struggling to cope with misdialed 911 calls from cell phones. The National Emergency Number Association, based in...

HEWLETT-PACKARD AND COMPAQ 1 Troubled Firm + 1 Troubled Firm = 1 Troubled Firm.(INTERNET & TECHNOLOGY)
September 5, 2001... Byline: Patrick Seitz The positive spin from Hewlett-Packard Co. and Compaq Computer Corp. about their planned merger couldn't cover up the fact that it's a combination of two struggling tech giants. Wall Street gave two thumbs down to...

HP-COMPAQ Analysts Say Pair Surely Are Large, But Not A Big Blue.(INTERNET & TECHNOLOGY)
September 5, 2001... Byline: Doug Tsuruoka On paper, it seems like the fiercest threat to IBM Corp. in years. But at second glance, analysts say, the results might not be that dramatic. Hewlett-Packard Co.'s plan to buy Compaq Computer Corp. would create...

ELECTRONIC COMMERCE Web Fuels Few Auto Purchases But survivors say shakeout among car-sale sites puts them in the fast lane.(INTERNET & TECHNOLOGY)
September 5, 2001... Byline: Pete Barlas Many a company has crashed in a bid to sell cars online. In the last year alone, five auto-related Web operations ran out of gas and two others were bought by rivals. So thorough has been the dismantling of the...

Verizon Hopes National Broadband Policy Can Break Logjam.(INTERNET & TECHNOLOGY)(Q & A)
September 5, 2001... Byline: Reinhardt Krause Less than 10% of U.S. households have high-speed Internet access, which comes mostly via upgraded phone or cable TV lines. A lot of tech and media companies would like to see that number climb much higher. They...

Smaller Surveillance Cameras Can Be Hidden Anywhere.(INTERNET & TECHNOLOGY)(COMPUTERS MADE PLAIN)
September 5, 2001... Byline: Brian Deagon Perhaps you haven't seen the latest spy cameras, but they may be looking at you. Surveillance cameras are so widespread that in New York City the average working person is recorded about 73 times a day, according...

MIDDLEWARE HP Focusing On Next-Generation E-Business Software.(INTERNET & TECHNOLOGY)
September 5, 2001... Byline: Murray Coleman Hewlett-Packard Co.'s plan to buy Compaq Computer Corp. certainly affects both "ends" of computer systems - the clients and servers - but it also has implications for the middle. Even as it made cuts in its...

EOTT ENERGY PARTNERS LP /Houston, Texas Oil Firm Eyes Stable Businesses To Grow Profit.(THE NEW AMERICA)
September 5, 2001... Byline: Douglas Austin Keep the oil and profits flowing. That's the message unit holders of EOTT Energy Partners LP like to hear. EOTT is a master limited partnership that buys, ships and resells crude oil. It's the middleman earning...

AMDOCS LTD. /Chesterfield, Missouri Declining Market Value Doesn't Deter This Firm.(THE NEW AMERICA)
September 5, 2001... Byline: Kirk Shinkle Lately, telecommunications firms have become a pariah to investors. Smaller companies are foundering. Equipment, testing -- even software companies that work in the sector -- have felt the pinch. Amdocs Inc. hasn't...

SRI/SURGICAL EXPRESS INC. /Tampa, Florida No, They're Not Sexy, They Just Sell -- A Lot.(THE NEW AMERICA)
September 5, 2001... Byline: Gloria Lau It seems like every time you open a newspaper or turn on the TV, you hear about a new medical device that'll keep you alive another decade or so. First it was the pacemaker, which speeds up slow-beating hearts. Then...

NAPM Points To Turnaround In Manufacturing.(A)
September 5, 2001... Byline: From IBD News Services A key manufacturing index posted its strongest gain in five years in August as new orders and factory output both rose, suggesting the ailing industrial sector is finally recovering from a deep, yearlong...

Congress Returns; Budget Questions Didn't Get Recess.(A)
September 5, 2001... Byline: AP President Bush, back at work with Congress, played down the end-of-summer budget dilemma that has Republicans pondering more tax cuts and Democrats warning of a crisis in Social Security. The White House said Bush would wait...

NYSE Stocks In The News.(A)
September 5, 2001... Byline: Monika Tjia After breaking out of a four-month base on April 25, Diagnostic Products gained 47% in six weeks. Since then it has formed a 13-week base, and now sits 2% off its high. Its Relative Strength line is at a new high, a...

RENO'S ODIOUS RESUME.(ISSUES & INSIGHTS)(EDITORIALS)
September 5, 2001... She is back. After eight years of national ridicule for her "service" under Bill Clinton, Janet Reno might have been expected to retire quietly in Florida. Instead, she is set for a high-profile run for its governorship. This should keep...

CONSCIENCE OF THE TAXPAYERS.(ISSUES & INSIGHTS)(EDITORIALS)
September 5, 2001... News reports of Texas Republican Phil Gramm's retirement from the Senate predictably have focused on control of that chamber. While that's important, we find it more significant that the Senate is losing its only trained economist. The...

DOOR OPEN TO CAP-GAINS TAX CUT.(ISSUES & INSIGHTS)(EDITORIALS)
September 5, 2001... To hear leading Democrats, President Bush is endangering the economy because the surplus is shrinking. Besides being exactly backward, this notion could help block needed steps to boost the slumping economy. To say that a shrinking surplus...

A Modest Proposal: Liberals Can Raise Their Own Taxes In Voluntary Ways.(ISSUES & INSIGHTS)(BRAIN TRUST)
September 5, 2001... Byline: Doug Bandow Tax rebate checks are flowing. What's a good tax hiker to do? Keep his or her ill-gotten gains, or give them back? The New York Times Magazine recently featured a column, "The Ethicist," where modern liberalism...

By Walking Out Of Racism Talks, U.S. Takes The Moral High Ground.(ISSUES & INSIGHTS)(PERSPECTIVE)
September 5, 2001... Byline: Tom Gray The World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance -- with a name like that, you can see why it never could get focused -- has actually achieved a couple of things. It has...

KEY FUND HOLDINGS.(MAKING MONEY IN MUTUALS)
September 5, 2001... Key Fund Holdings / Mattel was a top new buy of Columbia Special Fund as of the latest reporting period. The stock attempted to break out of a 16-week base on July 17, reaching an intraday high of 19.60. But selling kicked in, sending the stock...

Don't Jump Gun On Tax Loss Sales, CPAs Say Plot your strategy now, but wait for the market to tell you what to do.(MAKING MONEY IN MUTUALS)(INVESTMENT TRENDS)
September 5, 2001... Byline: Claire Mencke As stock markets continue to sag, investors' thoughts already are turning to something they usually deal with closer to year-end. That's tax-loss selling from their portfolios. It makes sense to try to get an...

Wells Fargo Fund Is Pursuing Solid Growers Small Cap Opportunities favors stocks poised for P-E expansion.(MAKING MONEY IN MUTUALS)(FUND PROFILE)
September 5, 2001... Byline: Leo Fasciocco Wells Fargo Small Cap Opportunities Fund tries to use a one-two punch when it comes to picking stocks. That's the way portfolio manager Ira Unschuld likes to put it. He wants to invest his money in a company...

The Real Most Active - NASDAQ.(B)
September 5, 2001... Byline: David Saito-Chung The Nasdaq's early rally turned out to be a mirage Tuesday. The composite reversed from its 1.7% gain to a 1.9% drop on higher volume. The Nasdaq 100 fell 3.1%. Corinthian Colleges, down 26% on Friday, lopped...

Where The Big Money's Flowing - NASDAQ.(B)
September 5, 2001... 9996C60.30Surmodics oSRDX54.17+7.571,470+759 9699A41.91SRISurgEx STRC41.30+2.25176+185 9998B27.86Unilab ULAB27.05+0.90370+134 9677B18.55Embrex EMBX17.50+0.8081+109 7592A32.14ESCMedSys oESCM30.05+1.091,297+91 ...

NASDAQ Stocks In The News.(B)
September 5, 2001... Byline: David Saito-Chung Activision has had a superb 2001, rising as much as 161% since pulling out of a yearlong base in the first week of the year. The stock notched a high of 41.15 in June, then settled into its current 11-week base....

Institutional Buying Fosters New Leaders.(A)(INVESTOR'S CORNER)
September 6, 2001... Byline: Christina Wise Many individual investors have wisely chosen to stay on the sidelines until the market snaps out of its doldrums. But institutional investors haven't left the field. They've rolled up their sleeves and are...

The True Ugly Side Of Globalization: U.S. Slump Now Is World's Problem.(A)
September 6, 2001... Byline: Donald H. Gold It's a classic case of "You can run, but you can't hide." The world is facing its first synchronized recession in 26 years. Every region is suffering at least a harsh slowdown, and many analysts say that...

IBD'S TOP 10.(A)
September 6, 2001... Layoff Wave Eases 32%, Still Higher Than Year Ago 1U.S. job layoffs fell to 140,019 in August from July's 205,975, reported outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. The number is still 145% higher than August 2000. High-tech...

AFTER THE CLOSE.(TO THE POINT)
September 6, 2001... WALT DISNEY AND NEWS CORP. will jointly launch a broadband video-on-demand service, Movies.com, in early 2002, as expected. HOT TOPIC August same-store sales rose 10%. Total sales grew 39% to $35.5 million. The youth apparel retailer will...

BUSINESS NEWS.(TO THE POINT)
September 6, 2001... TECHNOLOGY Compaq acquisition a good deal for HP shareholders, CEO says Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina defended plans to buy rival Compaq even after the shares of both firms plunged. "These companies fit together like a...

BUSINESS NEWS.(TO THE POINT)
September 6, 2001... RETAIL Tax rebates don't help Wal-Mart The No. 1 retailer said tax rebates haven't had an "overly significant" impact on sales. Retailers hoped the $38 billion tax rebate would boost spending. Wal-Mart also backed analyst estimates...

BUSINESS NEWS.(TO THE POINT)
September 6, 2001... TRANSPORTATION More U.S. flights arriving on time as weak economy slows travel Cancellations by major U.S. airlines dropped sharply in July and more flights arrived on time, the Transportation Department said. Carriers canceled...

THE ECONOMY.(TO THE POINT)
September 6, 2001... ISI's weekly activity index drops International Strategy & Investment's weekly index fell to 41.5 in the week ended Friday from the prior week. The four-week moving average was left unchanged at 42.3. "Our company surveys continue to...

TRENDS & INNOVATIONS.(TO THE POINT)
September 6, 2001... U.N. AIDS chief Peter Piot said 99% of Africans infected with HIV don't know they have the virus. He said the AIDS stigma scares people away from getting tested. The lack of a genetic variation that provides some protection against HIV...

TRENDS & INNOVATIONS.(TO THE POINT)
September 6, 2001... Authorities monitor gang Web sites Gang members nationwide are using the Internet to discuss crimes in private chat rooms and offer gang hopefuls a chance to join by posting online membership applications. Police are watching, but haven't...