Markets

WASHINGTON -- The Securities and Exchange Commission approved new regulations yesterday that will make it easier for foreign companies to delist from U.S. stock exchanges and withdraw from SEC oversight, including the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley law. Trading threshold The regulation will allow companies to delist their shares if U.S. trading is 5 percent or less of a firm's daily volume worldwide. The rules will take effect before a June deadline for complying with Sarbanes-Oxley's audit requirements, regulators said.

Global markets staggered yesterday as a French bank triggered a worldwide financial scare by halting withdrawals from investment funds that have lost money on high-risk U.S. mortgage securities. The central banks of major economies, including the United States, responded by pumping tens of billions of dollars into their banking systems in an effort to shore up investors' confidence. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average plunged 387.18 points, or 2.8 percent, to 13,270.68, its largest one-day point loss since February.

Stock markets all over have been rocked in the past fortnight by mounting concerns over the United States' subprime mortgage crisis, with the Singapore market losing some $50 billion of its market capitalization in 10 days. Volatility has shot up and central banks have had to intervene, injecting large doses of cash into markets last Friday to prop up confidence and stave off a market crash. Hopes are now high that the U.S. Federal Reserve - whose loose monetary policies earlier this decade were arguably the source of the problem - will now cut its short-term interest rates and ease the pressure in credit markets, possibly within the next fortnight.

Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. said yesterday that it has revised its financial outlook downward for the last quarter of 1999 because of weaker advertising prospects in medium-size television markets.In September, the Cockeysville-based television broadcaster said its late-1999 numbers would be dragged down by an ambitious investment program, through which the company hopes to bolster its stations nationwide.Yesterday's announcement marked a further diminution of expectations. Sinclair's shares fell $1.6875 to $10.375 yesterday.

ASK UNIVERSITY of Maryland history professor David B. Sicilia to explain the 108-point drop in the Dow Jones industrial average Aug. 27 and he'll likely ascribe it to the "Greenspan Effect."It's an apt label, demonstrating the increasing influence economists, professional investors and workaday consumers believe Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has on the financial markets -- not just in the United States, but abroad, too."The Federal Reserve should not have the effect on the securities markets that it does, given what we call its `levers of power,' " says Sicilia, whose specialty is business and economic history.

A LANDMARK federal telecommunications law passed in 1996 promised many benefits for consumers, including more companies competing for their business.But the promises of that law have not been fulfilled as the road to competition has been blocked by the Baby Bells, those regional phone companies formed in the breakup of AT&T's Bell System.As a result, Marylanders must still place virtually all their local calls through one company, Bell Atlantic Corp., which has 95 percent of the business market and nearly all of the residential market for local phone service, according to Maryland's Office of People's Counsel.

YOUR STOCKS or mutual funds may -- or may not -- have gained much in value this year. But unless you live in one of a handful of places around the country, you can be certain of this: Your home racked up solid appreciation gains in the past 12 months -- 5.3 percent on average nationwide, and 8 percent to 9 percent in the hottest statewide markets, such as Massachusetts, Minnesota and Colorado, plus Washington, D.C.And unlike your stock market profits, there's...

WASHINGTON -- AT&T Corp.'s $62.5 billion bid to buy MediaOne Group Inc. is likely to get approval from federal regulators, who see cable TV as the best chance to crack the local telephone market monopoly, analysts said yesterday.But the transaction, which would create the largest U.S. cable television provider, still faces tough scrutiny from antitrust authorities and the Federal Communications Commission.And consumer groups will likely try to derail the transaction. Rivals such as America Online Inc., the No. 1 online access provider, are expected to try to keep AT&T from controlling cable's new high-speed Internet networks.

Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. had set itself up for a whipping, and yesterday the whipping came.The Cockeysville broadcasting company's stock lost 28.5 percent of its value yesterday, falling $4.1875 to close at $10.50. The steep decline came after Sinclair warned late Tuesday that its new campaign to invest in television-station personnel, programming and promotion would help drag down its financial numbers for the rest of the year.Investors exchanged 11.33 million Sinclair shares, making the stock the 12th most active on U.S. markets yesterday.

After waiting cautiously on the sidelines as many foreign markets revived this spring, U.S. investors are finally getting brave enough to get back in the game."

Garlic scapes, the scrapple of vegetables, have gone gourmet. Scapes are the flowering, curly, central stalk of the garlic plant, and growers snip them off around this time of year so the plant puts energy into the bulb instead of the bud. After that, scapes used to land in the compost pile - or perhaps on the plate of an especially frugal farmer, the sort who came up with scrapple because he didn't want to let perfectly good hog offal go to waste....

NEW YORK -Stock markets around the world tumbled yesterday amid deepening concern over the health of the banking industry and doubts about the ability of governments to spur a recovery. The Dow Jones industrial average sank almost 300 points, closing less than a point above its late-November low. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index and Nasdaq composite index fell more sharply but stayed well above their November troughs. Banking stocks were pounded. European markets closed down more than 3 percent on average.

Wegmans Food Markets Inc. plans to bring one of its large supermarkets with gourmet offerings such as sushi, European-style cafes and patisseries to Abingdon, a move expected to radically alter Harford County's food retail landscape. The retailer expects soon to sign a lease to anchor a planned 350,000-square-foot, mixed-use center at Emmorton and Woodsdale roads just north of Interstate 95, a Wegmans spokeswoman said yesterday. The store, still to be designed, could be in the range of 120,000 to 140,000 square feet and employ as many as 600 people, Jo Natale said.

Leonard Whitehouse, who took clothing donated to charities and established an export market for it in West Africa and the Middle East, died of heart disease Monday at the North Oaks retirement community. He was 90. Born in Baltimore and raised on Fulton Avenue, he was a 1935 City College graduate. Whitehouse was 15 when a family friend, Solomon Schapiro, hired him to work in his used-clothing business. In those days, discarded garments were ripped into rags used as wipers for machinery or in roofing insulation or paper.

The latest federal statistics on housing prices in hundreds of local markets reveal patterns that haven't been making the nightly news: While on a national basis homeowners have lost over $1 trillion in equity since the end of the boom, the overwhelming majority of local markets continue to show net cumulative value growth over the past 60 months. In fact, according to the third-quarter survey released Nov. 25 by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, out of 292 metropolitan markets, 273 showed positive net home values over the course of the previous five years, while 19 were negative.

Stocks rallied yesterday to a huge comeback after suffering their worst week ever. The Dow Jones industrial average climbed 936 points - the biggest one-day gain in its 112-year history - as several countries took concerted steps to ease the financial crisis. All the major U.S. indexes rose more than 11 percent, with the Dow posting its best percentage-point gain in 21 years. The Standard & Poor's 500 index set a record for a one-day point gain and the largest one-day percentage jump since the 1930s.

As U.S. financial markets imploded and credit dried up in recent weeks, there seemed to be a haven abroad. But with financial turmoil spreading beyond America's borders, businesses and investors are likely to face daunting challenges as they tap into the global economy. Towson-based Black & Decker Corp. has seen tool sales slow in Europe and is reducing costs. McCormick & Co., the Hunt Valley-based spice maker, has seen a similar slowdown and is responding by marketing new products to cash-strapped families.

Count me among those amazed at the failure of the president and congressional leaders to get enough votes in the House to pass the bailout bill Monday. It looked like a sure thing. Objections would be voiced on the floor, some representatives would explain the misgivings they had about OKing a $700 billion bailout of Wall Street - and then, most of us thought, the thing would be brought to life anyway. We were wrong. The markets were panicked by the failure to pass it. Stocks fell precipitously.

OMAHA, Neb. -- Executives at firms badly hurt by their investment in complex mortgage-related credit securities "really didn't have any idea what risks they were involved with," investor Warren Buffett told an estimated 31,000 shareholders of his Berkshire Hathaway Inc. investing company yesterday. Berkshire's annual stockholder meetings, held every spring here in the home town of the man some people call the "Oracle of Omaha," always draw a huge crowd: Many come specifically to hear Buffett's blunt and often tart insights into the markets.

The Federal Reserve's dramatic steps to shore up America's financial markets and avert a crisis of the global financial system had to be done. Not to have acted would have threatened a far more precarious situation on Wall Street and beyond. The Fed's moves, including making secured loans available to every major investment firm, were prudent steps to protect broader markets and instill confidence in the system. The actions were announced Sunday as the Fed directed a negotiated sale of Bear Stearns, an investment house that found itself unable to borrow needed cash last week because of rumored losses on its subprime mortgage bond holdings.