Business Desk
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

PHARMECEUTICALS PFIZER TO PULL CELEBREX ADVERTISING
Pfizer has announced it will immediately pull advertising for its top-selling arthritis pain reliever Celebrex, whose safety was called into question last week after a study found an increased risk of heart attacks in patients taking high dosages of the drug.
A Pfizer spokesman, Andy Mc-Cormick, said the company was suspending Celebrex ads in newspapers, radio, TV, and magazines. He said the company made the decision in discussions with the Food and Drug Administration.
Mr. McCormick also said Pfizer plans to have its sales staff meet with doctors to explain the findings of the survey, which were made public on Friday. He said Pfizer plans to keep Celebrex on the market.
The FDA said Friday it was considering warning labels for Celebrex or withdrawing the drug from the market. Celebrex is in the same class of drug, called a cox-2 inhibitor, as Vioxx, a rival pain reliever that Merck & Co. pulled from the market earlier this year after a study found the drug doubled the risk of heart attack or stroke.
– Associated Press
ECONOMY
ECONOMIC INDEX SHOWS FIRST GAINS IN FIVE MONTHS
A gauge of future economic activity that had declined for five-straight months reversed course in November, signaling that the nation’s financial engine is still gaining power even though the growth rate has slowed.
The Conference Board, a private research group, said Monday that its Index of Leading Economic Indicators rose 0.2% in November – slightly better than economists had been expecting – following revised declines of 0.4% in October and 0.2% in September.
The indicator, which is intended to predict economic activity over the next three to six months, now stands at 115.2 versus its all-time high of 116.5 in May. It stood at 100 in 1996.
Six of the 10 indicators that make up the index climbed in November, including stock prices, consumer expectations and manufacturers’ new orders for consumer goods and materials. Declining indicators included vendor performance, average weekly manufacturing hours and building permits.
– Associated Press
REGULATORY
NYSE PROBES FOUR MORE VAN DER MOOLEN, LABRANCHE SPECIALISTS
Four more LaBranche & Company and Van der Moolen traders are under investigation by the New York Stock Exchange, joining at least eight market-makers already under scrutiny in the NYSE’s two-year trading probe.
Michael Nichols, 39, formerly of LaBranche, and current or former Vander Moolen traders Richard P. Volpe, 45; Robert A Scavone, 45; and Warren E. Turk, 36; are under formal scrutiny, according to disciplinary records compiled by the NASD and distributed to national and state securities regulators.
The exchange is targeting traders after LaBranche, Van der Moolen and the five other NYSE market-makers paid $247 million to settle in the same probe. Messrs. Volpe and Turk left Van der Moolen on December 16, according to the NYSE’s weekly bulletin. Ex-Van der Moolen trader Michael F. Stern, 54, was censured by the NYSE this month, the first punishment of a trader in the probe.
Messrs. Nichols, Scavone, Volpe and Turk were sent letters by the NYSE’s division of enforcement during the past 16 months advising them that their trading is under scrutiny, their disciplinary and employment records show.
– Bloomberg News
INTERNATIONAL
AMERICA LOWERS TARIFFS ON SHRIMP FROM THAILAND, BRAZIL
The American Commerce Department lowered tariffs on $1.7 billion worth of shrimp imports from Thailand, India, Ecuador, and Brazil, potentially lowering prices for America’s most popular seafood.
Thailand, the largest exporter of shrimp to America, faces average duties of as much as 6% down from a 10.3% preliminary tariff proposed in July after America determined Thai companies are illegally “dumping” exports at below-market prices. The duties were lowered yesterday after a more detailed analysis of the balance sheets of the exporting companies.
Imports account for 87% of the 1 billion pounds of shrimp Americans eat each year, the American International Trade Commission estimates. Thailand accounted for an average of more than $1 billion a year in shrimp sent to America during the past three years, and has filed a complaint at the World Trade Organization for the way America computed the duties.
– Bloomberg News
NATIONAL
GROCERY GIANTS REACH LABOR AGREEMENT IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
Three major grocers have reached a new labor agreement with 19,000 supermarket workers in Northern California, averting a threatened strike and laying the foundation for a possible truce with thousands of other employees in San Francisco Bay area stores.
Details of the agreement were withheld until the workers represented by United Food and Commercial Workers Union 588 vote on the new contract. After 10 months of negotiations, the two sides came to terms late Sunday, shortly before a union deadline for a strike vote.
The contract covers employees working in stores stretching from Modesto to the Oregon border.
– Associated Press