York Stock Exchange

NEW YORK -- For years, even while they were snapping up Japanese electronics and German automobiles, Americans remained downright jingoistic about their investments.Their money stayed close to home -- in U.S. stocks, bonds, certificates of deposit and other instruments.But government and private-industry data show that more capital is leaving the country for investment in foreign stocks and bonds. In the first three quarters of last year, U.S. investors poured $23 billion into foreign stocks and bonds, according to the government.

NEW YORK -- Ferris, Baker Watts Inc. has been censured and fined $20,000 by the New York Stock Exchange for problems stemming from the 1988 merger of Baltimore-based Baker, Watts & Co.and Washington-based Ferris & Co. Inc.The settlement, announced yesterday, comes after extended negotiations between Ferris and the exchange.The company, which neither admitted nor denied guilt, agreed to the terms only reluctantly, said Theodore Urban, general counsel for Ferris."It took a great deal of thought, but it became such an ongoing time-consuming problem with the exchange's enforcement division that we just felt, from purely a business standpoint, it was worthwhile to settle," Mr. Urban said.

Wall Street is booming, and tourists are flocking to New York in record numbers. Until recently, one apparently had nothing to do with the other.Yet lower Manhattan is now swarming with camera-carrying tourists, whose brightly colored T-shirts and shorts contrast vividly with the suits and stripes that otherwise abound downtown. That is because, increasingly, these tourists are in town to visit the financial district.They are making reservations weeks in advance to see the $140 billion in gold ingots stacked in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's vault, posing for pictures in front of the big bronze bull on Broadway and lining up weekdays as early as 8 a.m. to snag one of the 3,000 tickets given away to see the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

NICHOLAS A. GIORDANO loves New York. He likes the people, the food and the night life. But one thing he'd like to take out of the Big Apple is a chunk of business from the New York Stock Exchange.Giordano is president and chief executive of the Philadelphia Stock Exchange, and he's in a battle with the Big Board for business.The more investors who use the Philly exchange to trade stocks, the better for Giordano and the owners of its 505 seats."They [New York Stock Exchange officials] believe they offer superior service, and we disagree," Giordano said.

BOSTON - Fidelity Investments Inc. is trying to get the New York Stock Exchange to use an electronic trading system rather than one in which most transactions go through a floor trader. The biggest U.S. mutual fund company wants the NYSE to make its trading system more competitive, spokeswoman Anne Crowley said yesterday. Fidelity has said that electronic systems such as those offered by the Nasdaq stock market are more efficient and help reduce costs by limiting the role of traders on the floor.

U.S financial markets will remain closed for the second day in a row today after the largest terrorist attack in U.S. history destroyed the World Trade Center in New York City and damaged the Pentagon. "The American Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq Stock Market and the New York Stock Exchange, after consultation with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and in light of the heinous attack on America, have decided to remain closed through Wednesday, Sept. 12," the New York Stock Exchange said in a statement.

NEW YORK -- Flickering screens on around the clock rather than hoarse shouts from the pits during daylight hours is the future for the securities business, and all stock exchanges must accept it if they are to survive, the head of the National Association of Securities Dealers said yesterday.Joseph Hardiman, former chief operating officer of Alex. Brown & Sons and a Baltimore resident, made his comments to the financial press here in response to assertions by William Donaldson, chief executive of the still-dominant but fading New York Stock Exchange, that new forms of trading had "fractionalized" the securities markets, at great cost to the country in terms of oversight and fairness.

Chilled by renewed fears that swept the banking industry yesterday, MNC Financial Inc. led a pack of bank stocks broadly lower, tumbling 18.5 percent to $2.75 a share as it registered the biggest percentage loss on the New York Stock Exchange.Analysts agreed that yesterday's sell-off of bank stocks was prompted by the federal takeover Sunday of Bank of New England Corp., that region's third-largest banking company.Regulators moved on the company after its announcement Friday that it could lose as much as $450 million as the real estate market in that region continued its deterioration.

NEW YORK -- Stocks finished mixed yesterday amid concern about an economic report indicating that consumer confidence was beginning to falter."The drop in consumer confidence is the first bad economic news we've seen in quite a while," said Thom Brown, managing director at Rutherford, Brown & Catherwood.The Dow Jones industrial average fell 19.72 points, to 3,323.27, led by declines in Disney, Sears and General Motors. The NASDAQ index of smaller stocks continued to slump, losing 0.86, to 651.56, its lowest close since Dec. 16.But advancing stocks exceeded declining issues on the New York Stock Exchange by a slim margin.

NEW YORK -- Stocks slumped yesterday for a second straight session amid concern that inflation might be turning higher after a two-year decline.Stocks were also sent lower by news that President Boris N. Yeltsin of Russia was losing power to deputies who were elected three years ago under the Communist system.The Dow Jones industrial average fell 29.18, to 3,427.82. The Dow rebounded from a session low of 3,403.77 in the final two hours of trading.Stocks fell from the opening bell. The slide was fueled by the Labor Department's report that prices paid by wholesalers climbed 0.4 percent in February, the biggest jump in inflation at the producer level since November 1990.