Stocks Buoyed by Federal Reserve Board and Microsoft Ruling

Electronic News, July 2, 2001 by Suzanne Courteau

STOCK PRICES ON THE NASDAQ LAST week jumped for joy on news from the Federal Reserve Board last week that it was lowering interest rates a quarter of a point and that a federal appeals court had reversed part of a lower court's decision to break up software behemoth Microsoft Corp. of Redmond, Wash.

According to a Reuters report, the seven-judge appeals panel unanimously overturned a lower court order to split Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT) in two. The court left intact the finding that some of Microsoft's business practices illegally maintained the monopoly enjoyed by the company's Windows OS, but overturned a ruling by Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson that Microsoft tried to monopolize the Internet browser market.

The Microsoft announcement followed news that the central bank was cutting short-term interest rates a quarter of a point. It was the sixth cut by the Fed this year and, according to another Reuters report, possibly the last because of dissent within the board.