Marketplace: News Archives

Friday, November 10, 2000
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It's Friday, November 10. I'm David Brancaccio.

The second week in November was a lousy one for either George Bush or Al Gore, we just can't tell you which one. It was certifiably a bad week for the Nasdaq Composite Index, which closed down today for the fifth time this week. The index that includes a lot of high tech companies fell 5.33 percent. For one specific name, consider personal computer giant Dell Computer. Its shares fell another 19 percent today, after it announced that sales growth next year would be a 20 percent, which sounds like a lot, but isn't compared to Dell's historic performance. Rick Wittington follows tech at Bank of America, semi-conductor companies in particular.

Wittington: "High tech has been resisting the fed rate increases that really began over a year ago and high tech seems now to be succumbing to a tighter end market."

The Nasdaq is down nearly 12.5 percent for the week and is sitting at a 52 week low. Our Texas broker David Johnson is visiting and he's just over there in the control room waiting for his chance to analyze this in a few minutes.

One of the most powerful figures in the telecommunications industry would like to take his toys and go home. John Malone, founder of the cable TV empire Telecommunication, Inc, sold his Liberty Media to AT&T early last year, but now has told several financial newspapers that he wants it cut loose from its now-beleaguered corporate parent. AT&T is already chopping itself into three-wireless, cable, and consumer long-distance services.

BT of Britain is followed in the footsteps of AT&T and WorldCom, announcing it will break itself up into smaller companies and shed thousands of workers. In London, Martin Stott reports.

Stott: "The theory was that bundling lots of different telecom services under one roof would bring efficiencies and rising profits. Not so it seems. Now, like AT&T and WorldCom before it, BT has thrown out it's big is beautiful policy book and decided to cut itself down to size. BT's boss Sir Peter Bonfield told shareholders he's going to break the group into four companies. He's hoping to raise $16 billion by selling off various assets and shares in BT s mobile phone business and its Yellow Pages directories. Bonfield also plans to axe 2,000 jobs before Christmas and another 10,000 within the next two years. His mission, he says, is to make the phone giant 'lean, focussed and more agile.' Certainly it needs it - fierce competition saw BT's profits halved over the Summer and at the same time heavy investment in the internet and mobile communications doubled the debt bill to nearly $27 million. But will the restructuring plan be enough to put the company back on line? Shareholders seem unconvinced - since he made the announcement shares have fallen 11%. For Marketplace, I'm Martin Stott."

And that's the top of our news for Friday, November 10. The Dow fell 231 points today, 2.1 percent. The Nasdaq closed at 3029 on a drop of 5.3 percent. That index is down 23 percent for the year.