SEC, Big Board Join in Probing Business Week

Business Week magazine, the nation’s largest business publication, said Wednesday that it is being investigated by federal and market regulators over suspicious movement in the price of securities featured in its weekly stock column.

Mary McGeachy, Business Week’s director of public affairs, said the Securities and Exchange Commission and New York Stock Exchange have joined in the investigation of the magazine’s “Inside Wall Street” stock column.

“I talked with our lawyer this morning, and the SEC and the New York Stock Exchange are the two agencies that, as far as I can say, we are dealing with,” McGeachy said in a telephone interview from New York.

Business Week is published by McGraw-Hill Inc. and has a paid circulation of 962,000, with 6.1 million readers worldwide.

“We’re cooperating fully with the SEC and other regulators,” said Stephen Shepard, Business Week’s editor-in-chief.

Business Week disclosed last week that it launched an internal investigation into significant price and volume movements seen in several stocks featured in the stock column prior to the magazine’s publication.

Evidence of Activity

“Business Week documented sharp movements in the price of stocks mentioned in the ‘Inside Wall Street’ column,” McGeachy said last week.

“The statistical evidence shows that some of these stocks moved on the Thursday prior to the day that Business Week becomes available to its readers,” she said.

The complete magazine begins printing Wednesday at midnight for release to the press on Thursday at 5 p.m. Eastern time. It begins hitting the newsstands on Friday.

McGeachy said this Friday’s edition of Business Week would carry a statement to readers about the investigation and the publication’s internal security measures.