How Did the Fox Dow Do Today, Dear?

Expect to see the Fox brand liberally applied in Murdoch's rein

By Sophie Goldstein, Newser Staff

Posted Jul 18, 2007 6:04 PM CDT

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How Did the Fox Dow Do Today, Dear? — A new high for the Dow Jones is seen on a billboard in Times Square in New York, Tuesday, July 17, 2007. The Dow Jones industrial average swept past 14,000 for the first time Tuesday after a relatively tame inflation report gave investors reason to extend an extraordinary, but questionable, Wall Street... (Associated Press)

Get ready for the Fox Dow. If Rupert Murdoch is willing to pay $6B for a company that produced $105M in income last year, he must be seeing hidden opportunities, argues Brett Arends in the street.com. Dow Jones controls the name of the financial index—and if the sale goes through, Murdoch could change it to whatever he pleases.

A Fox Dow Jones Industrial Average would be particularly helpful to Murdoch's Fox Business Network, set to launch in October. Competing news organizations would be compelled to plug his company whenever they reported on stock prices. Murdoch, Arends hastens to argue, won't hesitate to milk his new asset for all it's worth. (More Rupert Murdoch stories.)

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