Austin American-Statesman from Austin, Texas • 66

Updates on tho Web Want to know how; 1 your stocks are performing? Go to: AuStin36U.COm http:www.austin 360.combizbiztop.htm on Austin360 to access the Thomson Investors Network. Insldo NYSE D4 Nasdaq D5 Mutual funds D8 Commodities D7 Mexican stocks D7 in rvo Friday, August 28, 1998 A Dow Jones industrial average, dose 73093 8698 81398 82098 8279E 9,100 9,000 8,900 8,800 8,700 8,600 8,500 8.400 8,300 3,200 8.100 manager Mark Coffelt Coffelt said brokers and advisers withdrew $400,000, but other investors saw it as a chance to get in at a good price and put $95,000 into the fund. 1 "Certainly there is a lot of nervousness out there," he said. "It's mostly the new brokers and new advisers who are wondering what to do." Thursday's stock market caught the attention of both optimistic and pessimistic investors. The Dow Jones See Investors, D3 weightof amonthlongdecline inequity prices.

In recent weeks, individuals have been pouring more of their new cash into the safe haven of money-market funds than into any other investment category, while at the same time many of them have been pulling money out of stocks. So far, August appears to be the weakest month for new purchases of equity mutual funds in several years. Some of the country's largest sellers of mutual funds said Thursday their customers have pulled more money out Global economic problems were behind Thursday's market collapse. Al Russian woes hurting Latin America. D3 Commodity prices drop sharply.

D8 of equity funds in August than they put in. Others, however, including the Vanguard Group, say that investors have been net buyers of equity funds. In Austin, Texas Capital Value and Growth Fund had a net loss of nearly $300,000 in capital Thursday, said fund Austinites, others watch market with concern, shy away from equity funds From Staff and Wire reports LididualTnvestors, whose stocks the market takes a tumble has been the bulwark of the bull market of the 1990s, appear to be weakening under 1 I MARKET INDEXES Close Change Dow Jones industrial average 8,165.99 Nasdaq composite 1,686.41 1,042.59 Philadelphia Semiconductor 217.53 Mexico Bolsa 3,055.71 COMMODITIES, spot price, near month delivery Oil (light sweet crude, barrel) $13.23 Natural gas (1,000 cu. ft) $1,672 T. Acorhpanyforsale Downtown may get N.Y.-I style apartments By R.

Michelle Breyer American-Statesman Staff -s In Denver, Post Properties Inc. is turning a vacant hospital into apartments-shops and offices. In Houston it is ToMY.sFocus. transforming the his- toric Rice Hotel into REAL ESTATE 350 loft apartments. Now, Post is close to finalizing a deal with the City of Austin to i 4 turna3-acrechunkof under-utilized down- Saies- town land along Shoal Creek into a residential commu- ggj- Richard SheinwaldAP Passengers at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, a Northwest hub, check video screens showing departure information Thursday.

Looming strike deadline quiets Northwest hubs MINNEAPOLIS Wary travelers rearranged their plans Thursday as Northwest Airlines and its pilots worked to avert a weekend strike that would shut down the airline and its regional feeders. With weeks of warning leading up to the pilots' strike deadline of 11:01 p.m. today, most passengers had already made other arrangements and the Northwest airport hubs were eerily quiet. "It's usually much busier here," explained Jean real estate i news Mortgage rates steady Roundup D2 The 250-unit apartment project would be between West Avenue and Bowie Street in the southwest part of down Tom LankeVAA-S photos Brown, a volunteer who staffs the information town. Post's proposal, tentatively called Post at Shoal Creek, could go before the Austin City Council by Sept 10, said Kent Collins, vice president of development for Post Properties' See Apartment, Back page Nehemiah Camariilo, an employee of Ross Technology, sold at the company's public auction Thursday.

Ross is weaves his way through several computers that were closing much of its former chip-making operations. Ross Technology auction attracts bargain hunters, former employees reminiscing booth at the Minneapolis airport across from the bank of Northwest ticket counters. So far at least two flights today to Austin's Robert Mueller Municipal Airport have been canceled. 3f.1 increases number of job cuts 3M Co. ups its planned job cuts to 4,500.

Story, D2. Fcrd, Mercury models recalled DETROIT Ford Motor Co. said Thursday that it will recall-more than a half-million cars and pickups to replace defective suspension parts that could pose safety problems. About 1993 Ford Taurus and Mercury Sable sedans and station wagons are being recalled to replace their front coil springs. Ford says the springs could break from cracks and corrosion, which could damage the tires.

Ford also said about 247,000 1997 and '98 F-150 four-wheel-drive pickups were being recalled because of a problem with the rear leaf springs. If the Capstar sale creates giant broadcaster ty 1 ByLori Hawkins American-Statesman Staff Mike Seningen showed up at Ross Technology on Thursday strictly for sentimental reasons. Ross, a once promising Austin computer chip company, was auctioning off equipment from PCs to office coffee makers as part of its shutdown. Seningen, who worked at Ross for years, came looking for a computer he once used. "I'd love to get one of my old machines back," said Seningen, who designed computer chips at Ross circuit designer until leaving 1V4 years ago.

"It's just for personal reasons. You know, I used that computer for a long time." Ross designed and sold chips used in powerful workstation computers. It ran into trouble when it failed to deliver products on time or compete Check out video clips from Thursday's auction at www.austin360.combizbiztop.htm. At Thursday's auction, Seningen and other former Ross workers seeing each other for the first time in a while shook hands and caught up as dozens of outsiders picked through boxes of cables, wires and office supplies. It was a mostly techie crowd, as evidenced by their golf shirts stitched with company names like IBM and Deja News.

"I'm just here to check out the deals," said Steve Kirk, a product manager at Dell Computer. "People who know me know I'm a big geek." An hour after bidding began, the auction room was standing-room only. See Remains, Back page truck is overloaded, the springs may break and strike the fuel tank. Savings and loans get warning DarmlrlfArc nrqm eoTr4-rro arts) Ininc oKmit rar7 By Earl Golz American-Statesman Staff Capstar Broadcasting is being purchased by its affiliate, Chancellor Media in a $2.3 billion deal that will make Capstar's Austin headquarters a thing of the past The deal also will make Dallas-based Chancellor the nation's biggest radio broadcasting company, leapfrogging CBS which said separately on Thursday that it was selling most of its radio business to the public. The new CBS spinoff, to be called Infinity Broadcasting, will rank second See Purchase, Back page Brad Meyer, president of Star Tickets, bids on office furniture at Thursday's auction.

in new markets. In June, the company, which lost $38 million last year, said it would shut down unless a last minute investor or buyer emerged. It did find a buyer for some of its operations, but the rest are being closed. also has offices in Austin, six other Texas cities and Denver. Three other Texas lenders were on Entrepreneurs' list Navigation Bank Houston, Midland American Bank in Midland, and Woodhaven National Bank in Fort Worth.

it corporate rock Forget Lollapalooza and South by Southwest Come Sept 15, Austin company, bands will go riff-to-riff in CHARTTech's Battle of the Bands. Groups from the Austin Software Council, Dell Computer AMD, Motorola IBM and the LCRA will when they won the Super Bowl. The Atlanta Braves got one when they won the World Series. The Texas Special Olympics' got one during its 30th anniversary. Now, the Hispanic Chamber of AustinTravis County is getting its own bottle for its 25th anniversary.

Austin Coca-Cola Bottling Co. has put the Hispanic business group's seal on 10,000 Coke cases to commemorate the anniversary. The limited edition bottles hit area H-E-B Food Stores shelves earlier this week and fffr 2,600 will be sold at "Ambiente pSSL-, Tejano," a Tejano music festival V-i Oct 3 as Dart of National His- tv' Truth in advertising txtguiaivis vv cu. ii oavuigii tuiu iucuu auuui uituv ing risky home equity loans. Story, D2.

Coffee seller files for bankruptcy WILMINGTON, Del. Brothers Gourmet Coffees the largest U.S. wholesaler of roasted, gourmet coffees, filed for bankruptcy-court protection after losses and cancellation of high-profile contracts left it unable to pay interest on some loans. The Boca Raton, company listed $29.5 million in assets and $41 million in liabilities in its Chapter 11 petition filed Thursday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, DeL Brothers said it had recently lost coffee contracts with the Albertson's Inc.

supermarket chain and with Continental: Airlines which began serving Brothers' Foglifter brand on its jetliners in 1996. Ex-bank chairman settles lawsuit ROANOKE, Va. A developer accused of de- fraudingCorEast Savings Bank and contributing to the bank's failure while he was chairman agreed Thursday to pay the federal government $4.5 million to settle a civil lawsuit Arthur G. Cohen allegedly funneled millions of dollars in bank loans into questionable New York City construction proj ects in which Cohen and his development companies secretly held stakes. The settlement is the government's largest monetary recovery in a civil case under the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act of 1989, according to the Justice Department Items are compiled from staff and wire reports.

panic Heritage Month. The 240,000 bottles were -printed in 5 Mexico and bottled in Fort Worth. David Sords, Austin area de- velopment manager for Coca- Cola, said the Hispanic cham- ber is the first chamber or- ganization in Austin to get In June, when it raised the cost of instate long distance calls by residential customers as much as 50 percent settled for telling customers with a small, one-column advertisement about three inches deep, that ran in just six newspapers in Texas. But some customers noticed the increase in their bills and got mad. And so did the Public Utility Commission when it learned that employees were telling customers that the PUC was to blame for the increase.

ended up promising credits on bills and delaying the increase until Sept 1. Not wanting another public relations black eye, last week was more forthcoming about a 6 percent increase in rates for various business and card services that the company says, will affect few customers. This time the ad ran for two days in 36 newspapers and was four columns by six inches deep. Msve a Ccke and a senrisa Things go mejor with Coke! The Dallas Cowboys got their own Coke bottles strut their stuff. The jam session starts at 3:30 p.m.

at the Austin Convention Center. The winner gets bragging rights as Austin's best company (or nonprofit or quasi-governmental) band. It also gets to donate a computer to the school of its choice. Rock on. SmsH business, bis monsy Psst Want to know where the green stuff is? If you're a small business owner, try calling First Commercial Bank.

Entrepreneur magazine lists the Central Texas bank among its 158 "Best Small-Business Banks" in the country. This is the third year in a row that the bank has made the magazine's list Entrepreneur recognized the bank's commitment to small businesses because 49.4 percent of its loans per total assets have gone to small businesses. The bank's business loan division, First Commercial Capital, has operations in Seguin, New Braunfels, Lockhart and the Lake Travis area. It special commemorative bottles in their honor. Staff witters Lor) Hawkins, Kim Ty-'son and Bruce Hight contributed to this week's Austin Inc.

Have an idea worth some ink in Inc? E-mal assistant business editor Bob Keefe at bkeefestatesman.com or call 445-1793. Ifow to ccnisct us: Business Editor Becky Bisbee: 445-3671 Fax 445-3971 E-mail: Businessstatesman.com P.O. Box 670, Austin, TX 78767 i.