| Wall $treet Week | |
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'A reproduction of the program's original 1970s-era logo (the stacked version aired without the dollar sign "$")' |
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| Also known as | Wall $treet Week with Louis Rukeyser (1972) Wall $treet Week with Fortune (2005) |
| Presented by | Louis Rukeyser (1972-2002) |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Language(s) | English |
| Production company(s) | Maryland Public Television |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | PBS |
| Original run | January 7, 1972 – June 24, 2005 |
Wall $treet Week (W$W) was an investment news and information TV program that was broadcast weekly each Friday on Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in the United States. It had a host (or hosts) and guest experts participating in discussions on the stock market and focused on forecasts. The show debuted on the Eastern Educational Television Network regionally on November 20, 1970, before PBS began distributing it nationwide on January 7, 1972.
The program, created by Anne Truax Darlington and produced by Maryland Public Television (MPT), aired from 1970 to 2005 and was officially titled Wall $treet Week with Louis Rukeyser during the 32 years he hosted. Most of the underwriters throughout the show's tenure included: Martin Marietta, Lockheed (soon to merge long after stopping their share of funding), Prudential Securities (and its precursor, Prudential-Bache Securities), Primerica Financial Services, Hilton Hotels Corporation (and its subsidiary, Conrad International Hotels), Sperry Corporation, CSX, Enron Corporation, Enron Foundation, Hanson Trust, Unisys, Travelers Insurance, Ameritech (before the big switch to SBC, which merged AT&T), MFS Investment Management, Oppenheimer Funds, A. G. Edwards, The Kaufmann Fund, Deloitte and Touche, The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and all local PBS affiliates and their viewers/contributors. Wall $treet Week with Louis Rukeyser was announced by Alec Webb.
In June 2002, the show was modified, dropping Rukeyser and changing the name to Wall $treet Week with Fortune. Rukeyser went on to host Louis Rukeyser's Wall Street on CNBC (cancelled on December 31, 2004 at Rukeyser's request due to continuing ill health), which was also distributed to PBS stations. Wall $treet Week with Fortune, which was hosted by Geoff Colvin and former Fox News business correspondent Karen Gibbs, ended its PBS run on June 24, 2005.[1]
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Over the years, the list of guests included such notables as Paul Volcker, Alan Greenspan, Ross Perot, John Kenneth Galbraith, Malcolm Forbes, and Paul Samuelson.
After being introduced, guests for the interview segment were escorted from backstage by a woman in formal dress dubbed by production staff and listed in the credits as "Ms. Smythe" ("Miss Smythe" until the late 1980s), always followed by her real name. Various women over the years performed this task, the most famous being Natalie Seltz.
During Rukeyser's tenure, the program featured a distinctive theme composed by Donald Swartz entitled "TWX in 12 Bars", which featured percussion supplied by a Teletype machine. The opening bells of the song replicated the sound of the Westminster chimes.
On the last Friday of the year, the host and panelists would appear in black tie, make market predictions and stock recommendations for the upcoming year, and review how well their predictions of one year ago fared.
On October 23, 1987 (the first program following Black Monday), the show dropped its regular format for a special program where Rukeyser interviewed three experts on the impact of the stock market crash.
Afterwards, the show would employ this alternative format whenever events warranted (usually once every few months).
Whenever Rukeyser was on vacation or otherwise absent, one of the show's regular panelists would fill in. For many years this function was usually performed by Carter Randall, though in later years it was Frank Cappiello after Randall died in 1999. Both Randall and Cappiello were investment bankers from Baltimore, convenient to where W$W was produced in Owings Mills, Maryland.
During the 1984 and 1985 pledge-drive seasons, Rukeyser hosted two "Investment Primer" specials, introducing viewers to the stock market and how it worked. The first show, which aired in 1984, dealt with stocks, bonds, and gold; whereas the second show in 1985 dealt with mutual funds, options and commodities. Some of the guests included: Stan Weinstein (editor of The Professional Tape Reader), Peter Lynch (manager of the Magellan funds at Fidelity Investments), and Dick Fabian (editor for "The Telephone Switch Newsletter")
With the new hosts came a change in format:
The new show's theme music was an updated, more orchestral version of "TWX in 12 Bars".
Without Louis Rukeyser as host, this new version suffered from dismal ratings, neither capturing a new more youthful market as PBS had intended, nor retaining the original viewers. It was soon cancelled.
During its run, the show used two different indexes to predict future market trends:
From 1970 to 1989, the show used a technical analysis developed by Robert Nurock. The analysis consisted of ten separate technical indicators, each of which was assigned a value of either +1 (indicating a bullish trend), -1 (for a bearish trend, or 0 (neutral)). A net balance of +5 (or higher) was interpreted as a buy signal, while a reading of -5 (or lower) was a sell signal. While the index rarely gave outright buy or sell signals, over time it was found to give an accurate forecast of the stock market. Rukeyser irreverently named the index "The Elves" (a reference to the Gnomes of Zürich), and dubbed Nurock the "Chief Elf". This index was replaced with the Elves Index after Nurock resigned from the show in October 1989 and took the original Index with him. He left Wall $treet Week after he had an on-air clash with Rukeyser and he was told by the show's producer, Rich Dubroff, that he was "not supposed to disagree with Lou." Actually, this was not the case. Dubroff asked Nurock why he did what he did on the air.
Used from 1989 to the end of the Rukeyser era, this index was also a reading of ten indicators scored in the same manner as the Wall $treet Week Index. Instead of reflecting technical factors, the indicators now represented the personal sentiment of ten market analysts about the direction of the market over the next three months. The Elves Index had more volatility and gave more buy signals than the Wall $treet Week Index, but was not as highly regarded. In 1998, one magazine even suggested the Elves Index was more useful as a contrarian tool, citing three examples where buy signals were followed by periods of market drift or contraction.
Later, Rukeyser added an Elves Index for the Nasdaq. This index had one of the worst predictive records of any public index. There was never a sell signal that was correct and neither was there a buy signal that was correct. The Nasdaq moved in the opposite direction of the signal more than half the time.
The indexes were "retired" by Rukeyser after 9-11. At that point, the indexes were signalling a very strong sell signal. However, as was usually the case, it was an excellent time to do the opposite as the market rallied significantly after the initial selloff.
The premiere of W$W on November 20, 1970 was carried on eleven stations of the Eastern Educational Television Network. The show rapidly grew in coverage and viewers until it became one of the most popular programs on the newly created PBS member stations. At its peak, the program aired on over 300 stations, and claimed a viewership of 4,100,000 households, which meant more people watched W$W every week than read the Wall Street Journal. The program became a major source of profit for both MPT and PBS through underwriting support and viewer pledges (it is estimated PBS earned $5,000,000 profit annually from the show).
Over the years, stock traders and analysts noted that a company touted on W$W on Friday would experience a run-up in its stock price the following Monday. This phenomenon, dubbed "The Rukeyser Effect", was stated to be a further demonstration of the program's influence. However, in 1987, Prof. Robert Pari of Bentley College published an academic article in the Journal of Portfolio Management detailing the results of a study that found that stocks recommended by Rukeyser's guests on Wall $treet Week not only tended to rise in price and trading volume in the days preceding the Friday evening broadcast, peaking on the Monday afterward, but thereafter those stocks tended to drop in price and under-perform the market for up to a year following the recommendation.[2] Rukeyser strongly disputed this claim, but ten years later Professors Jess Beltz and Robert Jennings published another academic article in the Review of Financial Economics reporting results consistent with Pari's original findings, and that there was "little correlation between the 6-month performance of a recommendation and the abnormal volume at the date the recommendation is made." They observed that there were differences in return performance between the recommendations of different individuals, but the market could not discern the more insightful recommendations from the less insightful.[3] Another commentator observed "It is mathematically impossible for the thirty million viewers of this show to beat the market, since they are the market."[4]
Louis Rukeyser conducted the proceedings with a wry sense of humor (including the use of puns) and a reassuring manner. In 1980 Rukeyser explained his hosting philosophy to The New York Times as, "I am talking to one person, whom I regard as intelligent, with a good sense of humor, but not all that technically knowledgeable." He instructed panelists and guests not to use technical jargon and economic theories on the show, but rather talk about making money, because, "Economics puts people to sleep. Money wakes them up."
From its ratings peak in the early 1980s, W$W suffered a long steady decline in viewers due to competition from shows such as the Nightly Business Report, cable programs like Moneyline, and cable networks such as CNBC. By 2001 viewership was down to 1,500,000 households and demographics showed that the average W$W viewer was 65 years old (about the same age as Rukeyser). MPT began to discuss the possibility of updating the format in an effort to reverse these trends. On March 21, 2002, MPT announced that beginning in June the program would be renamed Wall $treet Week with Fortune, would be a collaboration between MPT and Fortune magazine, and would feature two new cohosts. Rukeyser was invited to remain with the program in a reduced role as a senior correspondent, but he turned down the offer.
The following evening, Rukeyser opened the telecast by announcing "A funny thing happened to me on the way to the studio this week — I got ambushed." He criticized MPT's decision to change the show format, announced that he was developing a new business program for PBS, and concluded his commentary by asking viewers to write to their local PBS station and request it carry his new show. After the broadcast MPT dismissed Rukeyser and executive producer Rich Dubroff. Over the next three months Marshall Loeb and Ray Brady served as guest hosts while the new format was put in place.
Despite "ambushing" Rukeyser, the show's trend of losing viewers continued as the show floundered on without Rukeyser's trusted presence and was terminated in early 2005. Rukeyser died just 11 months after the show ended.
Five years after going off the air, licensing rights to use the Wall Street Week name were acquired by Jeff Salkin, anchor of MPT's State Circle program. Rather than attempt to replace Rukeyser with a new host, they have taken what they describe as an "ensemble approach". The ensemble consists of Jeff Salkin himself in addition to former Nasdaq President Alfred Berkeley and former Nasdaq Vice President Maribel Aber acting as moderators and interviewers.
Since the original broadcast did not rely on commercial advertising revenue, it was believed to be more objective and long term oriented. In an effort to be true to these original broadcast ideals the new online version is subscription based, not ad supported.