STORY:
No Y2K Worries on Wall Street

Stock Market expected to continue its upward trend despite the threat of Y2K

If there are any concerns over Y2K computer problems you won't find them on Wall Street. In fact, investors are not staying away from the market, they are jumping in before the year comes to a close.

It looks like the global meltdown expected with Y2K is now not expected, and that's good news for the market. While some computers may crash when the year rolls over to 2000, the mood is upbeat that most computers have been fixed to be Y2K compliant and therefore won't cause any big problems.

Investors also like the idea that the Federal Reserve has put extra money into the market to ease concerns about running out of cash at the end of the year. Those two things combined seem to signal an upbeat mood on Wall Street heading into the year 2000.

There's one other positive sign giving investors a reason to cheer this holiday. Third-quarter earnings on average jumped 22.7 percent over a year ago. This is the biggest gain since the first quarter of 1995.

With so many positive signs heading into the close of the year, its no wonder market watchers are predicting stock price to rise before year's end.

There's only one small problem and that would be the Consumer Price Index (CPI) which the U.S. Labor Department is set to release. It will show prices rose a small amount, but not enough to cause any investment changes. Wall Street expects the central bank to leave interest rates alone for a while. Rates went up three times already this year and they are not expected to increase again before the end of the year.

So it looks like 1999 will go down in the books as a record breaking year on Wall Street. Technology stock prices alone have helped the Nasdaq index gain about 65 percent this year alone.

Source: Reuters

DATE: 12/14/99

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