Reverse spin / The week in Review

Michael D. Weiner, who runs blend funds for Bank One Corp.’s One Group, told reporters Tuesday that the market these days reminds him of the French Revolution. And that was before the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell to 9796 and the Nasdaq composite, after topping 5000, dropped to 4847. As he mentioned, it’s the best of times and the worst of times, too. The Dow bounced back two days later to 10,010 and the Nasdaq closed for the first time over 5000 at 5046, only four months after hitting 4000. It’s a kind of nickel-and-dime tug-of-war writ large.

Conning tale

Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. OKd forking over $68 million for the 39% of Conning Corp. it doesn’t already own. Conning, of course, is not a bunko operation but a specialist insurance asset manager and research house. MetLife sweetened its January offer by two bucks a share to $12.50. It’s going public itself, you may recall, before April Fool’s Day.

Prudential Securities Inc. of New York, a subsidiary of much-fined Prudential Insurance Co. of America, held up its end by being censured and fined 100G by NASD Regulation Inc. It neither admitted nor denied trying to strong-arm Friedman Billings Ramsey into taking the usual 7% instead of the 6% to which it had cut its rate to become lead manager of First Alliance Corp.’s $59 million initial public offering in 1996. The move would have meant $600,000 more in fees.

Deutsche ber alles

The big news in the bank biz is the pending creation of a $1.2 trillion asset bank with the $30 billion combination of Germany’s Deutsche Bank and Dresdner Bank. The deal also involves insurer Allianz AG, which is wrapped up with both banks, as well as U.S. holdings of all three. Allianz will buy DWS Group, Deutsche’s asset management Abteilung as well as its retail branches.

Only a little less earth-shatteringly, J.P. Morgan & Co. Inc. decided to spend $1 billion this year on a new arm called LabMorgan (not a pet dog) to develop electronic commerce projects.

It’s the pay, stupid

No wonder John Reed decided to take a powder as co-chief executive of Citigroup: He’s low man in the chairmen’s office. Fisherman Robert Rubin, who didn’t even start until the end of October, hauled down a third more than Mr. Reed’s $13.2 million package. Winner and still champion, it goes without saying, is co-chairman Sanford I. Weill, at $59.5 million. How can he live on that pittance? Relax. He also exercised $75.7 million in options.

Pop, Snap, crackle

H&R Block Group Inc., which pops up every March in storefronts like crocuses in a suburban garden — but not as colorfully — has bought the anchor spot on NBC’s Internet gateway tax center, Snap, which crackles at www.Snap.com.

It’s a tradition

Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. brokers were forced to write orders by hand Thursday when a “server issue” took its Trusted Global Advisor system down. The Schwab disease also hit namesake Charles Schwab Corp. on Monday when a power surge KOd both online and phone trading in Britain for several hours.

It’s a start

For the first time since Herbert Hoover was president, the Treasury Department bought back some debt. It was only $1 billion, but as Senate Majority Leader Everett McKinley Dirksen said in the ’60s: “A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.”