Word: steepest
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Wall Street's bull market suffered a temporary setback last Monday, when the Dow Jones industrial average plunged 21.87 points, its steepest slide in almost two months. Later in the week, though, the market charged back smartly and closed at 1232.59, another record high. The short-lived sell-off was sparked by Barton Biggs, 50, chief portfolio strategist for Morgan Stanley & Co., the Manhattan investment banking firm that handles $7 billion in investments for clients, including about $5 billion from Kuwait. During a routine Monday-morning planning session, the gist of which was flashed to Morgan's clients...
...Chancellor, who must quickly come to grips with problems of the country's sagging economy. The most sensitive issue is social-welfare spending: at a time when 1.8 million West Germans are unemployed, businessmen are complaining loudly that 70% of their labor costs are for social benefits, the steepest percentage in Western Europe. Says Liane Launhardt, an economist for the Frankfurt-based Commerzbank: "There is no doubt that what we have done over the years is escalate the social safety net." Agrees Economist Wolfgang Baumann of the Cologne-based Federation of Industry: "What we need is a shift...
...jubilation did not last long. Though interest rates continued to ease fractionally lower, the short-lived rally fizzled, and by Wednesday the Dow industrials had sagged back nearly to their Monday-morning starting point. The U-turn decline of 12.94 marked the steepest drop since Feb. 22. Worse still, by week's end the drooping 30-stock average had declined even further, plunging another 11½ points on Friday to close at 784.34, the lowest since April...
...which showed prices declining at an annual rate of 3.3%, was the first such drop since August 1965, and the sharpest rate of decline since 1953. Skidding gasoline prices, which little more than a year ago were marching briskly upward, led the decline. They dropped 4%, one of the steepest slips ever recorded for a one-month period. As of last week, a gallon of gasoline was selling, on average, for $1.18, the lowest level since January...
From January 1979 to January 1981, oil prices shot up approximately 150%, and the rise sent American consumer prices leaping at an annual rate of more than 12%, the steepest peacetime increase in more than 30 years. Since April of last year, though, petroleum prices, which had briefly gone to more than $41 per bbl. for high-quality crude, have declined slightly to approximately $33 per bbl. Moreover, in recent months prices have actually begun to slip somewhat on the unregulated spot market, where crude was last week selling for as little as $30 per bbl. As a result, consumer...