A month's worth of Steven Syre's Boston Capital column [ Click here to search the Globe Archives for more ]

A winning season
(4/15/2003)
Afew stats for Red Sox fans this morning: 30.7, 45.1, and 18.7. A selection of earned run averages from the bullpen? No, those are the percentage returns earned last year by the three largest investment programs operated by John W. Henry & Co., the low-profile commodity trading advisory firm run by the team's principal owner.

Give peace a chance
(4/10/2003)
The war rally wasn't much to write home about. A few things stand out about the stock market's most recent war phase. All the benefits were captured at the very start of the rally, most of them before the first missile was fired. The gains were moderate, less than 10 percent. And it seemed to end with a whimper, losing steam before Baghdad's 40-foot bronze likeness of Saddam Hussein took a header on live TV.

Perpetual turnaround
(4/8/2003)
You've got mail if you own Parametric Technology Corp. stock. It's not company correspondence, but a pile of pitch letters from class-action lawyers jockeying to sign up shareholders before a deadline next week in a case against Parametric over its accounting for software revenues.

The war ate my homework
(4/3/2003)
Not producing the kind of results your boss expects lately? Blame the war.

Fireman has many options
(3/30/2003)
Reebok International Ltd. had a heck of a year in 2002, reviving profits in a big way and driving its stock price higher in a slumping market. So why did the compensation committee of Reebok's board stiff chief executive Paul Fireman when it was handing out envelopes at the end of the year? Of course, the entire concept of a raw deal involves a lot more than a zero when it touches a captain of industry. Often it involves six or seven zeros.

The fog of war
(3/27/2003)
What did the stock market do yesterday? Rather than recite the numbers, I offer this alternative response: What does it matter?

France, Germany stocks ride high on war bull
(3/23/2003)
The global stock market's war rally that began more than a week ago in advance of the military action has been like a tide lifting all boats. Virtually every market around the world has climbed in unison.

Really no call for a rally
(3/20/2003)
The powerful stock market rally that followed swift military victory against Iraq in 1991 was like a tide that lifted all boats. On the eve of a new war, everyone wants to know whether financial history can repeat itself.

A big exit, as Gillette shares go nowhere
(3/16/2003)
Adios, Warren Buffett. The famous investor and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. chief will step down from the Gillette Co. board this spring, two years before the end of his current three-year term as a director.