New York Stock

Due to a production error, part of the New York Stock Exchange weekly listing was left out of Saturday's Business section. The listings that were left out appear today on page 6. The Sun regrets the problem and is taking steps to avoid a recurrence.

Orioles center fielder Adam Jones can make diving catches and hit mammoth homers, but on Friday we will find out how good he is at ... bell ringing. Jones will ring the closing bell on the New York Stock Exchange trading floor on Friday afternoon Jones won his second Rawlings Gold Glove award last week - teammates Matt Wieters and J.J. Hardy also won, giving the Orioles the most honorees in 2012 - and this year's recipients will be honored at a ceremony in New York that evening.

Sunday's Business section will contain separate year-end stock tables for the New York Stock Exchange, American Stock Exchange and NASDAQ market, including the projected 1993 P/E and the change in stock price -- in actual dollars and percent VTC for 1992.The section will also contain a year-end mutual funds table, which will include the amount each fund distributed in dividends and capital gains, and change in net asset value for 1992.

A day's worth of some excellent storm coverage by CNN was all but shredded during the Piers Morgan show Monday night when meteorologist Chad Myers reported that the New York Stock Exchange was under three feet of water and the hip-shooting host ran wild with the report that turned out to be false. What a shame for all those CNN correspondents in places like Rehoboth Beach, Ocean City and Asbury Park who spent the day and night standing in cold ocean water and rain doing such a fine job of reporting the story.

Beginning today, The Sun is expanding its New York Stock Exchange listings to include yearly highs and lows as well as intraday highs and lows, dividend yields and price-earnings ratios. A recent survey of 1,250 users of Sun market tables clearly indicated that a full listing of NYSE results was what readers wanted most.We also are restoring the "Offer" column to our mutual funds table, which presents the selling price of funds that carry a "load," or sales commission charge.Readers interested in intraday highs and lows on the American Exchange or the NASDAQ National Market or in supplemental Over-the-Counter stocks will find that information available from The Sun's Sundial telephone service, which also provides for tracking a portfolio of stocks.

NEW YORK -- U.S. stocks retreated yesterday amid concern that the dollar's recent strength will crimp multinational companies' overseas profits. Drug and beverage companies led the slide.Declines in Merck & Co., Pfizer Inc., Johnson & Johnson and Coca-Cola Co. pushed down the Dow Jones industrial average and the Standard & Poor's 500 index.The Dow industrials slid 34.69 points to 5,553.90, hurt most by United Technologies Corp., Merck, Walt Disney Co., Caterpillar Inc., Boeing Co and Coke.

Black & Decker Corp., which has been a darling of Wall Street for the last year, saw its shares fall 5.4 percent yesterday in extremely heavy trading, after other consumer products companies warned of sales slowdowns.Black & Decker hasn't made sales projections and didn't return calls asking for comment on yesterday's stock action.More than 2.3 million shares of the Towson-based power tool maker changed hands in New York Stock Exchange trading yesterday, the stock's biggest volume in 2 1/2 years.

NEW YORK -- Broad market indexes mirrored the Dow Jones industrial average yesterday, as many of them plunged more than 6 percent and hit lows for the year.Among those with major declines, the Russell 2,000 index, a benchmark of small capitalization stocks, slumped 20.59 points, or 5.74 percent, to 337.96, continuing a trend of small-cap losses in recent weeks; the Wilshire 5,000 index plummeted 632.31 points, or 6.71 percent, to 8,785.71; the American Stock Exchange composite index dropped 37.51, or 6.22 percent, to 565.07; the New York Stock Exchange composite index lost 31.52, or 6.15 percent, to 480.60; and the S&P 400 midcap index skidded 18.76, or 6.26 percent, to 281.40.

Don't know much about the stock market -- but we do know a stock stock-market picture when we see one.When the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped, tumbled and even plunged Tuesday, national newspapers responded in full photographic force. And no picture said it better than The Sun's front-page photo of trader Salvatore Testa on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Testa was photographed sitting very alone, with his right hand palming his worried brow, his eyes downcast and the trading floor characteristically doused with trading slips.

NEW YORK -- Stocks, except for those on the NASDAQ over-the-counter market, closed lower yesterday after General Electric and other leading companies reported disappointing earnings."

Due to a production error, part of the New York Stock Exchange weekly listing was left out of Saturday's Business section. The listings that were left out appear today on page 6. The Sun regrets the problem and is taking steps to avoid a recurrence.

MUCH AS IT has for more than 200 years, the New York Stock Exchange opens this morning for trading. But these days, a new era also opens for the Big Board -- one demanding not only new leadership but a new governance structure. The NYSE has long been the blue-chip brand among America's and the world's stock markets, the last eight years under the very public leadership of its now fallen chairman, Richard A. Grasso. Last week, on the two-year anniversary of his finest hour -- when the Big Board reopened just four trading days after the 9/11 attacks on its very doorstep -- Mr. Grasso resigned.

Richard Grasso Resigns. The New York Stock Exchange fashions itself as the global symbol of capitalism. But now, the controversy over Richard Grasso and the ousted chairman's pay package has the storied institution itself under fire. The board pushed Grasso out yesterday less than a month after the disclosure of his $140 million pay package - but only after pressure continued to mount. Tuesday, managers of the nation's three largest pension funds, including California's Public Employees Retirement System, joined the chorus demanding that Grasso step down.

WASHINGTON - The Securities and Exchange Commission will approve rules requiring companies that trade on U.S. stock markets to get shareholder approval for stock-compensation plans, people familiar with the proposal said yesterday. The requirements will be included in listing standards that the SEC plans to approve Monday for companies that trade on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq stock market and other U.S. exchanges, the sources said. The new rules would let shareholders reject option packages and other stock compensation awarded to executives by company boards.

More than 16 million shares of McCormick & Co. Inc.'s stock changed hands yesterday after the company and Standard & Poor's announced that the spice maker would become a part of the S&P 500 index. The stock, which joined the index after yesterday's closing bell, typically trades between 300,000 and 500,000 shares a day. It was among the 10 most active stocks on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday. Shares rose 46 cents, or 1.83 percent, to close at $25.58. The Sparks-based company, which was previously on the S&P MidCap 400 Index, called the change a milestone.

THE ANTIDOTE for what ails America's stock markets is earnings - that is, actual profits and honest corporate reporting on those profits. Sooner or later, America's fundamentally strong economy will deliver sufficient earnings to reignite Wall Street, but that won't wash if trust in those numbers' accuracy remains shaken. This week, Congress and President Bush are set to attack the corporate abuses that have thoroughly undermined investors' confidence. Mr. Bush's speech today on Wall Street could be a watershed for his presidency, his party and the economy, one in which he has the opportunity to transcend the GOP's 20-year deregulation drive and his own history of questionable stock deals.

More than 16 million shares of McCormick & Co. Inc.'s stock changed hands yesterday after the company and Standard & Poor's announced that the spice maker would become a part of the S&P 500 index. The stock, which joined the index after yesterday's closing bell, typically trades between 300,000 and 500,000 shares a day. It was among the 10 most active stocks on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday. Shares rose 46 cents, or 1.83 percent, to close at $25.58. The Sparks-based company, which was previously on the S&P MidCap 400 Index, called the change a milestone.

A raft of bad news, ranging from lower General Electric Co. profits to fears that the Middle East conflict could escalate, sent market indexes tumbling across the board yesterday. The bellwether Dow Jones industrial average, an index of 30 large-company stocks, slid 205.65 points, or 1.98 percent, to 10,176.08 points. The decline, analysts said, was propelled in part by General Electric's announcement that first-quarter profit fell for the first time in seven years. A report by newsletter SEC Insight that International Business Machines Corp.

In this "new economy" era, exemplified by computers, globalization and precision, the cornerstone of the U. S. financial system -- the stock market -- still relies on an inexact measurement system dating to the Spanish conquistadors. They used the system known as fractions. Professional investors don't much mind having stock prices quoted in eighths and sixteenths of a dollar, viewing fractions as a kind of secret knowledge that separates the in-the-trenches traders from the investing masses.