NATIONAL

DOW JONES TO BUY MARKETWATCH FOR $520 MILLION MarketWatch Inc., which owns the CBS.MarketWatch.com Web site, has been sold to Dow Jones & Company for $520 million, ending a month-long bidding war, according to a report last night on the CBS MarkeWatch Web site.

The online financial news and information provider said Dow Jones will pay $18 a share for MarketWatch. The Web site also said Dow Jones, the parent of the Wall Street Journal, will now be able to expand its reach into the consumer financial news business. MarketWatch had been approached by several firms interested in its news, ad sales, and licensing arms. Among those companies that were interested were Viacom, which already had a significant stake in MarketWatch, as well as the New York Times Company, and Yahoo, according to published reports. If the deal is approved by shareholders, Dow Jones will make significant gains in Internet content and advertising sale business as it competes with Reuters, Market-Watch said last night.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

FED’S GRAMLICH: U.S. MUST CUT DEFICIT TO BOOST SAVINGS The U.S. must cut its budget deficit to finance the investments it needs to prepare for the retirement of the baby boom generation without borrowing from abroad, Federal Reserve Governor Edward Gramlich said.

“Our low national savings rate and our high public deficits have in effect translated into national borrowing,” Mr. Gramlich said Saturday in a speech at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy in Ann Arbor.

“If we were any other country in international history, it would have long ago been stopped,” he said, calling the situation “unstable.”

A drop in savings by individuals and government means the world’s biggest economy needs foreigners to finance its budget and trade deficits. That has helped push the American dollar down against the euro and the yen for seven consecutive weeks.

– Bloomberg News

MARKETS

GOLD MAY RISE FOR FIFTH WEEK AS INVESTORS HEDGE AGAINST DOLLAR Gold prices may rise for a fifth week on expectations that a slumping dollar will spur purchases of the precious metal and gold-backed securities as alternatives to stocks and bonds, a Bloomberg survey showed.

Twenty-eight of 55 traders, investors, and analysts surveyed on November 11 and November 12 from Sydney to New York advised buying gold, which surged to a 16-year high. Sixteen recommended selling, and 11 recommended holding the precious metal.

UBS Investment Bank, manager of the World Gold Council’s planned sale of $100 million in gold-backed shares, said last week that it plans to set a price on the securities this week. The council is funded by some of the world’s biggest producers, including Newmont Mining Corp. and AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. Gold has climbed 11% in the past year as the dollar fell to a record low against the euro.

– Bloomberg News

IN THE COURTS

W.R. GRACE FILES PLAN TO CAP ASBESTOS, OTHER COSTS AT $1.61 BILLION

W.R. Grace & Co., a maker of chemicals and building materials, said it filed a bankruptcy reorganization plan that would limit its asbestos-related payments to $1.61 billion.

The company said it filed the plan because it hasn’t reached agreement with creditors, shareholders, and representatives of asbestos-damage claimants under a one-month extension granted by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del.

Lawsuits over asbestos, a fire-retardant material linked to cancer and other ailments, have forced more than 70 companies into bankruptcy since 1982. Such suits may eventually cost American businesses and insurers more than $200 billion, the policy research group Rand Institute reported in 2002.

Shares of Grace and other asbestos-hobbled companies have climbed this year on speculation about legal settlements. They rose further after the American elections on optimism that Republican victories boosted prospects for creation of a fund that would end the lawsuits. Grace shares closed last week at $14.41, almost a six fold increase this year.

– Bloomberg News