Securities

Shares of Comparator Systems Corp. plunged 82% Wednesday, closing at 10 cents per share in a number of private trades that took place outside any recognized stock exchange. The trades, which involved a tiny fraction of the Newport Beach company's outstanding stock, marked the first time Comparator's shares have changed hands since a May 8 trading halt was imposed by regulators of the Nasdaq stock market.

Milan Panic, the beleaguered chairman of ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc., plans to exercise stock options worth $3.4 million and sell nearly 129,000 shares to pay taxes and related expenses, the company announced Tuesday. The options, which Panic received as long as 10 years ago, come due in six weeks at an exercise price of $3.75 a share--less than one-sixth of the stock's present value, according to David Watt, the company's general counsel.

The roomy Newport Beach office of Robert Reed Rogers reflects the tastes of a man who cultivates a dignified and worldly air. There are Indonesian tapestries, a replica of Egyptian papyrus and a lamp like those that once lit the cabins of the Orient Express. But the most unsettling decoration in Rogers' office--an uncanny replica of a ticking bomb--may be the most appropriate metaphor for the company he runs. After ticking softly for 17 years, Comparator Systems Corp.

The roomy Newport Beach office of Robert Reed Rogers reflects the tastes of a man who cultivates a dignified and worldly air. There are Indonesian tapestries, a replica of Egyptian papyrus and a lamp like those that once lit the cabins of the Orient Express. But the most unsettling decoration in Rogers' office--an uncanny copy of a ticking bomb--may be the most appropriate image for the company he runs. After ticking softly for 17 years, Comparator Systems Corp.

You can easily buy stock in giant Microsoft Corp. or in Anheuser-Busch Cos. So why not in your neighbor's fledgling software company or in a local microbrewery? Or for that matter, why not in the corner dry cleaner? As Wall Street's bull market surges ahead, small-company stocks have emerged as the new stars.

Can Bart Simpson skateboard his way around Wall Street? Film Roman, the North Hollywood firm that produces the popular animated TV series "The Simpsons," is about to find out. The 12-year-old company, one of the leading independent animation firms with three Emmys under its belt, is planning to go public in a stock offering in July that would raise between about $38 million and $45 million.

The trading frenzy in Biomerica Inc. persisted Thursday, as the small biomedical firm's common stock lost 46% of its meteoric gain from the day before. The Newport Beach company's stock had quadrupled the previous day after the company announced plans to produce a test to detect one of the early warnings signs of prostate cancer. Shortly after Nasdaq trading opened Thursday, the stock inched up 92.5 cents to $10.675, but then gyrated downward throughout the day to close at $6.375, off $3.375.

Shares of Comparator Systems Corp. continued to slide back to their penny stock origins Thursday, falling 50% in price in private trading outside any stock market. Comparator stock closed at 5 cents per share, as 6.58 million shares changed hands two days after the company was removed from the Nasdaq stock market for failing to answer regulators' questions about the company's finances.

Continuing the sweeping transformation that gained momentum with the purchase of CBS Inc., Westinghouse Electric Corp. said it was considering splitting itself into two parts, separating the broadcasting group from the company's core industrial businesses, which include power generation, nuclear systems and mobile refrigeration units.