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- <text id=92TT0009>
- <title>
- Jan. 06, 1992: Business Notes:Wall Street
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1991
- Jan. 06, 1992 Man of the Year:Ted Turner
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- BUSINESS, Page 64
- Business Notes
- WALL STREET
- Flying in the Face of Gloom
- </hdr><body>
- <p> If the U.S. economy is in such dismal shape, how come Wall
- Street feels so good? After five consecutive daily increases,
- the Dow Jones industrial average closed at a record 3101.52 last
- week. The bull run has pushed the Dow index up 167 points, or
- nearly 6%, since Dec. 20. That was the day the Federal Reserve
- Board lowered the discount rate--which is what the Fed charges
- banks for borrowing money--a full percentage point, to a
- 27-year low of 3.5%.
- </p>
- <p> Wall Street's euphoria reflected investors' hopes that
- rock-bottom interest rates would help end the economic slump.
- "The stock market is predicting a recovery," said Allen Sinai,
- chief economist for the Boston Company Economic Advisors.
- Investors, he noted, expect the fall in rates to reduce the
- interest burden of debt-laden companies and thereby boost
- corporate profits.
- </p>
- <p> But the market can be a clouded crystal ball. Although
- stocks surged during the allied victory in the gulf war in
- March, the economy later faltered.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
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