Stockbrokers

Just after 9 a.m. Wednesday, the glass doors on the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange burst open, and the symphony begins. "How's Cisco?" a trader shouts. "What are you saying on Goldman?" yells another. "Let's go! Let's go!" Feet shuffle, fans whoosh, televisions blare, cameras click, electronic devices chime like slot machines. No one knows what today will bring.

Crude oil's crazy ride this year continued to test new extremes on a shortened trading day Wednesday as the price fell more than 9% to $35.35 a barrel, its lowest close in more than four years. So far, the price of oil has plunged nearly 76% after reaching a record high of $147.27 in July. Commodities traders were responding to more bad economic news Wednesday, analysts said, as government reports showed that unemployment rose and consumer spending fell.

Former Putnam Investments Chief Executive Lawrence Lasser agreed to a $75,000 fine to settle Securities and Exchange Commission allegations that he oversaw improper payments to brokers. Boston-based Putnam compensated brokers, who in return, provided "heightened visibility" in selling Putnam's mutual funds to clients, the SEC said Tuesday. Lasser knew of the arrangements with brokers and failed to adequately disclose them to Putnam's board, the SEC said.

Underscoring the growing clout of hedge funds, federal regulators are seeking to determine whether Wall Street stock brokerages routinely leak sensitive trading information to people running these investment vehicles.

Franklin Resources Inc., manager of the Franklin and Templeton mutual funds, won dismissal of a lawsuit over investors' claims that it engaged in a kickback scheme with securities brokers and charged excessive fees. Franklin made undisclosed payments to brokers to encourage them to push the funds, investors said in a complaint in federal court in Newark, N.J. The investors claimed that Franklin, which oversees $564.

The Securities and Exchange Commission said Monday that it wouldn't fight a court decision that would place new restrictions on Wall Street brokers overseeing about $300 billion in clients' money. In March, a federal appeals court overturned SEC regulations permitting brokers to offer some fee-based services without adhering to stiffer customer-protection requirements other investment advisors have to follow.

Former Salomon Smith Barney Inc. broker Philip Spartis won a $1-million defamation verdict against a lawyer who claimed Spartis conspired with former analyst Jack Grubman in biased recommendations of WorldCom Inc. stock. A Phoenix jury decided, 7 to 2, that the lawyer, Stuart Goldberg, defamed Spartis on a website that claimed Spartis committed fraud while running a "boiler shop" in the Atlanta branch of Salomon, a unit of Citigroup Inc.

In a courtroom haunted by Enron Corp. and power crisis abuses in the West, lawyers for two former energy traders told jurors Tuesday that they reported fake natural gas transactions to private industry publications but didn't know it could be a crime. Former Dynegy Inc. employee Michelle Valencia and Greg Singleton, who worked for El Paso Corp.

The Securities and Exchange Commission said Tuesday that Richard W. DeBoe agreed to pay $24,517 to settle federal allegations that he abetted fraud by Peter N. Brant, who pleaded guilty a decade earlier of using unpublished Wall Street Journal columns for insider trading. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ordered the payment in a June 26 judgment that also bars DeBoe from future violations of securities rules, the SEC said in a statement.