[Daryn Kagan, Cnn Anchor:] Let's talk a different type of number right now. There is a huge settlement in a lawsuit over initial public offerings, IPOs. Andy Serwer is "Minding Your Business." Good morning, sir.
[Andy Serwer, "fortune" Magazine:] Good morning, Daryn. If you lost money in hot stocks in the 1990s and 2000...
[Kagan:] Who didn't?
[Serwer:] ... and who didn't, this might be good news for you; 309 technology firms mostly have agreed to pay $1 billion to investors to settle allegations that the IPO market was rigged back then in the day, in the glory days. Who can imagine?
[Miles O'brien, Cnn Anchor:] Imagine that. I'm shocked and in awe.
[Kagan:] How
[Serwer:] Well, this is that's the good news. The bad news is this is still winding its way through the courts. It also involves investment banks. Look at this as the first step. And it involved all sorts of hot names, Daryn, everything from World Wide Wrestling to Martha Stewart, Ask Jeeves, Dr. Koop, Global Crossing. All of those guys are involved. And basically, the allegations were that the firms with the investment banks had professional investors, you know, buy the stocks and then buy them again to keep the stock prices up, $119 billion investors poured into IPOs in the late 1990s. And, look, remember some of those first-day gains?
[Kagan:] Yes.
[Serwer:] And these were three of the biggest ones. I mean, can you imagine that in this sort of environment? It's hard to remember that.
[Kagan:] Are any of those even around anymore?
[Serwer:] Yes, some of them are, in fact.
[O'brien:] Yes.
[Serwer:] Yes.
[O'brien:] It's quite a list, isn't it?
[Serwer:] Yes, it sure is.
[O'brien:] It kind of brings back some bad memories. All right, stocks today?
[Serwer:] Well, yesterday was a very nice day. Stocks were up across the board here. You can see 67 points, 31, Nasdaq up almost 2 percent. Sort of digesting and recovering from the Fed rate cut news. Interest rates are trending up, unfortunately, which is kind of bad news. Tech stocks continue to climb. And I would look for stocks to at least hold these gains the last two trading days of the quarter, Monday being the last day.
[Kagan:] Very good.