LOOSE CHANGE

Dow Jones & Co. reported that net income slumped 32.5 percent last year compared with 1990 results. The slide largely reflected its $32 million write-off "of capitalized develop-ment costs, goodwill and equipment associated with The Trading Service," Telerate's conversational forex system.
Despite the news, Dow Jones stock jumped sharply last week, to a new 52-week high of 30 7/8.

Correction: Kobayashi, the Japanese money broker, which initially owned a two percent stake in Minex, saw its stake reduced when new shares were issued late last year. Kobayashi now owns a one percent stake in the foreign exchange order matching system.

The New York University course on the Fundamentals of Foreign Exchange is slated to start February 6. Speakers include Marc Chandler, chief economist at I.D.E.A., Karen Kluge, corporate trader at Credit Suisse, Mark Galant, chief dealer at Credit Suisse in New York, foreign exchange broker Ali Rada, Dean Witter Reynolds senior vice president, foreign exchange, Peter Pfau and Fed chief dealer Tom Heffernan.

Add another foreign exchange directory to the list. The Forex Book 1992 lists 2,000 dealing banks "in every major financial center," according to its publisher, Surrey-based D. R. Andrews. The directory also gives the status of each bank listed and is double indexed--by bank names and by financial center. The Forex Book 1992 is available for £12 from its publisher.

The Philadelphia Stock Exchange is starting to see the fruits of its labor pay off. Deutsche mark/yen options trading reached a new peak last Friday when 664 contracts changed hands. The impressive returns have also prompted the exchange to launch its two other cross rate options. Though officials there say no specific date has yet been selected, the PHLX's pound/yen and pound/mark options will be trading by the end of this quarter, they maintain. However, PHLX still hasn't submitted its plan to launch short dated currency options to the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to senior vice president, Joseph Rizzello.

Knight-Ridder would like to see its news run on Quotron System Inc.'s F/X Trader conversational foreign exchange trading system. "They already carry our FX prices," says Knight-Ridder marketing manager Karen Kidwell, "so it would make great business sense" for F/X Trader to pick up Knight-Ridder news as well. "It's something we'd like to do," she adds, though she declined to comment on whether or how soon an agreement would be reached.

The Bank of Japan reported that dollar/yen turnover slid in the week ended January 24 to about $8.35 billion a day on average. Turnover continues to slide from peaks touched earlier this month. The Bank reported that turnover averaged about $8.7 billion in the week ended January 17 and $8.97 billion in the week ended January 10.

Quotron's F/X Trader continues to find new homes. As of January 16, 230 banks had agreed to sign on, though only 163 are currently live on the system.

Telerate Systems Inc. is currently testing its swaps facility for The Trading Service in Europe, a Telerate spokesperson says. She declined to elaborate.

As expected (FX Week, January 17), despite impressive gains in December, the Ferrell Index rose more modestly in 1991 than it ever has before, officials there report. The Index rose 19.8 percent for the year and 13.7 percent in December. John Henry's G-7 currency fund posted the best returns for the year, up 50.9 percent, after gaining 17.9 percent in December.

Reuters Holding PLC's chief executive, Peter Job, "will make a statement on the progress of Dealing 2000-2 at the time of preliminary results on February 12," a Reuters spokesman says.