U.S. Enron Shocked NYSE

The shock of Enron is spreading to the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

The stock price of the largest U.S. investment bank, J.P. Morgan-Chase & Co. Inc. (JPM.N) ended at 36.51 dollars, falling by 1.36 dollars on the 16th. J.P. Morgan is the biggest creditor who loaned 2.6 billion dollars (around 3 trillion and 400 billion won) to Enron. J.P. Morgan announced that it recorded quarterly deficit for the first time in those 5 years, losing 332 million dollars in the last quarter or 18 cents per share, due to the Enron and Argentina situation. That is a worse result compared with the earnings of 78 million dollars in the same period in 2000. The company counted a loss of 87 million dollars in insolvent bonds last year due to Argentina`s default on foreign loans and the Enron affair.

Citigroup stocks, who is affiliated with Enron, was valued at 48.86 dollars, falling by 0.86 dollar. CNN anticipated that Wall Street financial companies who gave loans to Enron would be considerably damaged.

Meanwhile, the collapse of Enron created worries about company window-dressing among investors. The stock price of the manufacturer Tyco, whose market value is over 90 billion dollars, closed at 46.71 dollars after continually falling by 20 percent this year.

New York Times reported that investors concluded that Tyco handled the accounts unclearly, negotiating a merger with another company, and ordered that the company be `sold` in unison to avoid making victims of `another Enron`.The volume of Tyco shares dealt in NYSE on the 15th recorded the highest number with 68 million shares. Chairperson Dennis Kozlowski had a phone meeting with investment analysts and defensively said, "There is no problem in the account records."

U.S. retail business Dollar General confessed to window-dressing their account books, promised to correct them, and apologized to investors on the 16th. Wall Street Journal reported on the 17th that the company could not help frankly confessing their faults to prevent further shocks.

Eun-Taek Hong euntack@donga.com