What’s Ahead?

Times reporters and editors predict what lies ahead in their areas in the coming year:

Markets

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Tech Stock Craze Due to Cool

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The technology stock craze that reached epic proportions worldwide in recent months will almost certainly experience a setback in 2000. The only issue is how far prices will fall before enough investors decide the shares are too cheap to pass up. (Warning: In mid-1999, many Internet stocks fell 50% before rebounding.) For Wall Street overall, the now 9-year-old bull market will face more heat from the Federal Reserve, which is likely to continue raising interest rates to slow the economy’s torrid pace. U.S. markets also will have to contend with greater competition for investment dollars from resurging economies in Europe and Asia.

The mechanics of stock trading, already revolutionized by the surge of small investors trading online, will be further retooled: By mid-year at least some U.S. stocks will be traded in simple decimals rather than in the fractional increments (now generally sixteenths of a dollar) that have prevailed for two centuries.