Marketplace: News Archives

Friday, December 29, 2000
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It's Friday, December 29, 2000. I'm Sarah Gardner in for David Brancaccio.

After a volatile year, stocks ended the last trading session of 2000 on a rather pessimistic note. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 80 points. The NASDAQ composite lost 86, which is more than 3 percent. As Marketplace's Michelle Brier reports, most investors have two words for the year 2000: good riddance...

Brier: "The year 2000 on Wall Street was grim. It was ugly. And it seemed to go on and on forever."

Weissberg: "2001 can't come fast enough for most investors."

Brier: "Seaport Securities President Ted Weissberg."

Weissberg: "It hasn't been a fun year. Listen, no one likes to lose money."

Brier: "Just how bad was 2000? Well, the Dow ended the year just six percent lower than where it started. Eleven Dow components even managed to end the year with gains. But nineteen others weren't as fortunate, including AT&T, down 67 percent, Microsoft down 62 percent, and Kodak down almost 40 percent. The NASDAQ faired even worse. The NASDAQ composite slid 40 percent in 2000. Of the NASDAQ 100 widely held stocks, 58 were year end losers. Yahoo! got clobbered - it ends the year 85 percent lower. Microsoft lost 60 percent of its value. While technology and internet stocks were among the year's biggest flops, they also included two of 2000's biggest stars: networking equipment provider Ciena jumped 189 percent. Juniper rose 143 percent. There were other winners to be found, says Hugh Johnson, Chief Investment Strategist at First Albany..."

Johnson: "The top of the list of course are utility stocks, they're defensive stocks, stocks you buy in a bear market and they were great winners in 2000. Drug stocks, health stocks, consumer noncyclicals - like food and beverage stocks safe havens - were the place to be in 2000, and you ended up a winner if you were in those sectors."

Brier: "And let's not forget, the NASDAQ set an all time high in 2000 - reaching the five thousand mark on March 10. If investors looking back at 2000 feel like they've seen nothing but red ink and margin calls, its probably because the previous five years saw incredible climbs. It's a cliché, but the lesson of 2000 for so many investors was that what goes up must come down. In New York, I'm Michelle Brier for Marketplace."

Sydell: "Online shoppers spent more than 6 billion dollars this holiday season. This is according to Bizrate.com, an internet comparison shopping center. Yet the increase in sales isn't likely to be enough to save internet businesses that were already hanging on by a thread, says Seth Geiger of Bizrate..."

Geiger: "Many of these retailers needed to see a blockbuster holiday season in order to really keep their businesses afloat. And we just didn't see that. We saw a good very solid holiday growth season."

Sydell: "Geiger says the biggest winners this season were brick-and-mortar companies like Walmart, K-Mart, and Target, which had expanded their businesses to the net.

Strong last minute buying helped make up for the slower-than-anticipated sales earlier in the holiday season. Geiger says that's a sign of a growing trust on the part of consumers that on-line retailers can deliver on time. In fact, a Bizrate survey found customer satisfaction up 14 percent over last year. And, an increased number of women went online this season. Analysts say that's a sign that online retailing is here to stay, even if some e-merchants aren't.

From the technology desk, I'm Laura Sydell for Marketplace."

Dimsdale: "The Bush Inaugural committee is accepting contributions as high as 100.000 dollars per individual, compared to a hundred dollar limit on donations for President Clinton's second inaugural.

Such large, unregulated, post-election contributions are one more sign of improper corporate influence in government, according to Jeff Cronin of the citizens' lobby Common Cause."

Cronin: "It creates the impression they're just trying to curry favor with the incoming administration."

Dimsdale: "But Inaugural Committee spokesman Dirk Van de Beek says the donations will make tickets to the festivities more affordable for the public..."

Van de Beek: "These are people that want to be part of history that want to help make these events as accessible as possible and we just see it as them trying to be good citizens."

Dimsdale: "Campaign finance reformers are hailing the inaugural committee's promise to make all inaugural contributors public.

Meanwhile, on another ethics front, President Clinton yesterday lifted the five-year ban on former executive branch employees going to work for lobbyists, to the dismay of Charles Lewis, the director of the Center for Public Integrity..."

Lewis: "They have basically done away with the only real initiative on any subject involving ethics that Clinton ever did. It has just gone by the wayside quietly, almost without public notice."

Dimsdale: "The White House argues there's no revolving door problem, since outgoing government workers will not get any special lobbying access from their Republican replacements. But Lewis points out that 80 to 90 percent of the executive branch offices are career employees who will still be in the offices that their old bosses will be lobbying.

In Washington, I'm John Dimsdale for Marketplace."