Union Carbide

An edgy stock market gasped yesterday over fears that International Business Machines Corp.'s year-end numbers would be weaker than expected, and that Japanese firms will slow down their binge buying of U.S. Treasury securities.The rumors rocked the Dow Jones industrial average, which fell nearly 130 points by lunch time, but managed to rally and end the day at 6,402.52 points, down 70.73.Robert Freedman, chief investment officer of John Hancock Funds in Boston, which manages $23.5 billion in assets, said the market was affected by rumors throughout the day. One rumor had it that the United States was launching an attack on Iran.

IN THIS record-setting stock market, with the Dow Jones industrial average this morning at an all-time high of 6,266.04 -- up 1,148.92 points, or 22.4 percent, this year -- why not consider some relatively conservative investments?Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine, December, lists "Safe Stocks If The Market Flops." Among them are St. Paul Companies, Sun Trust Banks, Clorox, Kimberly Clark, Procter & Gamble, Winn-Dixie Stores, American Home Products, Schering-Plough and Warner Lambert.

Windows users call for helpMicrosoft Corp. sold 1 million copies of Windows 95 during its first four days of availability, and telephone calls from people who were having trouble with it jammed the company's phone lines.Microsoft said it can handle 20,000 calls per day for Windows 95 and has been at capacity since Thursday. The company has 1,600 employees answering questions and contracted with five companies to supply hundreds more technicians.L'Oreal will settle complaintsL'Oreal said yesterday it will pay the Commerce Department $1.4 million to settle complaints that the French cosmetics company violated U.S. anti-boycott laws when its U.S. affiliate sent three documents to L'Oreal's Paris headquarters in 1989.

Scapegoats are important. You cannot have a disaster without one. Sometimes that helps, and sometimes hinders, the search for the root causes, the effort to prevent recurrence.Chicago's Mayor Richard M. Daley fired three officials for the April 13 pouring of the Chicago River through a 50-mile tunnel system into downtown basements, knocking Chicago for a loop. He has had the heads of the acting transportation chief, the chief bridge engineer and a project engineer and is seeking removal of two others.

David L. LeppoVA management analystServices for David L. Leppo, a management analyst for the Department of Veterans Affairs in Washington, will be held at 2 p.m. today at the Haight Funeral Home in Sykesville.Mr. Leppo, who was 53 and lived in Sykesville, drowned Sunday after his canoe overturned in the Liberty Reservoir.Mr. Leppo went to work nearly 15 years ago for what was then the Veterans Administration. Earlier, he was a budget analyst for the Maryland Department of Education.From 1962 until 1972, he worked for the Linde division of Union Carbide Industrial Gases Inc. in Baltimore, in Mobile, Ala., and in Detroit, where he was a plant superintendent.

DEN OF THIEVES.James B. Stewart.Simon & Schuster.477 pages. $25.7/8 Anybody who followed the Wall Street corruption scandals of the 1980s knows the names Ivan Boesky, Dennis Levine, Michael Milken and Martin Siegel. These were among the bigger trout snared in the net cast by the Securities and Exchange Commission when the river of greed roared through the New York Stock Exchange.Now, James B. Stewart, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and editor for the Wall Street Journal, has tied this messy, complex and ugly little slice of history into a single book that captures both the context and the color of white-collar crime.

NEW YORK -- U.S. stocks closed mixed yesterday as the Federal Reserve's policy-making arm left interest rates unchanged, raising concern about the central bank's inflation-fighting credibility and sending the dollar lower and gold higher."

NEW YORK -- U.S. stocks rallied yesterday as a strong jobs report led to surges in paper, chemical and auto shares, only to relinquish some gains in the final hour as computer-guided "sell" orders swept the market.Long-distance telephone companies led the retreat, amid concern that a new price war could hurt their profits. The perception that a thriving economy will put more pressure on the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates later this month, eventually slowing earnings growth, also held stocks back.

NEW YORK -- U.S. stocks fell yesterday, led by economic bellwethers Georgia-Pacific Corp. and Dow Chemical Co., on concern that next year's earnings might not meet expectations."

U.S. Healthcare Inc., the East Coast HMO company, said yesterday its first-quarter profits fell 14 percent due to expenses associated with its pending buyout by Aetna Life & Casualty Inc. The company reported earning $82 million, or 53 cents per share, for the three months ending March 31, compared with $94 million, or 59 cents per share, for the same period last year.U.S. Healthcare said it incurred $20.5 million, or 13 cents per share, in after-tax costs in the $8.9 billion sale to Aetna, which is still subject to approval by shareholders of both companies and federal and state regulators.