By Maxine Shapiro, KERA 90.1 business commentator
Dallas, TX – It's Friday so "It's Only Money," a review of the big and not-so-big stories of the week. I'm Maxine Shapiro with KERA Marketplace Midday.
You might be interested to know that today is a quadruple witching day in the stock market. No, four women are not going to be burned at the stake, although many an investor has been scorched trading on days like today. In essence, it means volatility - stock options, index options, stock futures, and index futures all expire - you're out today or else.
But what a week for the New York Stock Exchange - NYSE, the Big Board. And for once the action was swift, but by no means will it be painless. Chairman Dick Grasso resigned one week after it was learned he was receiving a $187 million compensation package. He gave back $48 million, an amount most of us won't see in a lifetime. Between 1995 and 2002 Grasso, quoting the Wall Street Journal, "collected more cash...than the heads of 10 of the 11 financial service firms like Merrill Lynch and Citicorp." And the board of the NYSE, who voted 13 to 7 for his resignation, the same board that voted for his compensation package, is now being asked to quit. A little house cleaning might be in order.
But what's $187 million for the 400 wealthiest Americans who made Forbes list? A couple of Texans made the Top Ten. Ranked fourth is Alice Walton, heiress of Wal-Mart. Not that it means anything to her fortune, but Wal-Mart is bulldozing its way into Japan where 58 percent of its retailers are mom-and-pop businesses. Revolt now, Japan!
And Michael Dell of Dell Inc. moved up to number ten. His worth, after a couple of down years, went up by $1.8 billion. Nobody at Dell or in Austin could tell me how many of the 5,000 employees he laid off have been hired back. Either way, it's a daunting number. For KERA Marketplace Midday, I'm Maxine Shapiro.
Marketplace Midday Reports air on KERA 90.1 Monday - Friday at 1:04 p.m.
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