Taking Stock of the Perfect Gifts for Shareholders and Executives
What did investors and executives find in their stockings or under their trees this morning? A few guesses:
* Shareholders of K-Tel International Inc., Books-a-Million Inc. and other companies that have soared and tumbled on Internet hype: “Security Analysis: The Classic 1934 Edition,” by Benjamin Graham and David Dodd (McGraw-Hill).
Or perhaps “Secrets of Winning Roulette,” by Martin Jensen (Cardoza Publishing).
* Shareholders of America Online Inc., the No. 1 online service, which has risen more than sixfold this year: “Staying Wealthy: Strategies for Protecting Your Assets,” by Brian H. Breuel (Bloomberg Personal Bookshelf).
* Mutual fund managers who have lost money in 1998: One share each of Dell Computer Corp., Lucent Technologies Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., so at New Year’s Eve cocktail parties they can say they own some of the year’s top-performing stocks in their personal portfolios.
* Managers of Long-Term Capital Management, which lost most of its capital after Russia’s default caused its bond market bets to plunge: “Manias, Panics and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises,” by Charles P. Kindleberger (Wiley Investment Classics Series).
* Garth Drabinsky, co-founder of theater company Livent Inc., which plunged 99% amid allegations of accounting irregularities: “Accounting for Dummies,” by John A. Tracy (Dummies Press).
* “Chainsaw Al” Dunlap, fired from the top post at Sunbeam Corp. amid allegations of accounting irregularities: “Resumes that Knock ‘Em Dead,” by Martin Yate (Adams Media Corp.).
* New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, whose officials tried and failed to lure the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq-Amex to relocate to the Garden State: A proposal to snag the Cincinnati Stock Exchange.
* The Beardstown Ladies, the investment club of elderly Illinois women that said it beat the Dow Jones industrial average year after year--then retracted the claim after it said Price Waterhouse found a “computer input error”: One calculator for each lady.
