Bulls push stocks higher ignoring possible rate hike
** missed drop char **Stocks ended the week on a higher note, even though investors are still worried the Federal Reserve may pull the interest-rate trigger to slow down the economy.
Among the 50 stocks in the Town Crier Index, there are always a couple of issues that help bring up the index. This past week, Applied Materials, Apple Computer, Cisco Systems, Harmonic Lightways, Silicon Graphics, and Varian Medical all had upward price movements helping increase the index to $13,349 profit on the $50,000 invested Jan. 1.
The Dow Jones industrial average was up 240.10 points for the week, while the Nasdaq composite index jumped 57 points for the week.
The bombshell last week was the announcement Merrill Lynch, the country's largest full-service brokerage, would try to beat the discounters at their own game.
Merrill said June 1 that by the end of 1999, it will charge $29.95 commissions to customers who trade online without relying on brokers' recommendations. Currently, the firm's five million customers pay hundreds of dollars for full-service trades.
Merrill is surrendering to market forces. Today, something like one in seven stock trades is done online by investors who don't think they need a broker's advice. Deep discounters charge commissions of less than $10 a trade.
E-Trade, a Town Crier Stock index issue, is known as one of the most prominent of the stock market discounters. Investors realize how deeply commissions charged by full-service firms can cut into investment performance.
Noel, a Los Altos Hills resident and longtime investor, writes about the stock market.