October 7, 1999

Seventh article in series, Birth of An Opera, describes Lyric Opera of Chicago's final rehearsals of View From the Bridge, which premieres October 9; photos (M)

Dividend Increases Slow Even as the Economy Soars If the measure of corporate America's financial health is its ability and willingness to increase dividends to shareholders, then the country might appear to be in a recession. Standard & Poor's reports that 117 companies announced dividend increases in September, 10 fewer than in the month a year earlier. That was the 15th consecutive month that the number of dividend increases was down year-over-year. By itself, such a long string of relative bad news is not extraordinary. What is unusual is that the economy is doing so well even while companies are growing more reluctant to raise their dividends. Floyd Norris: Market Place. [Page C11.]

Jeffrey A Citron agrees to step down as chairman and chief executive of Datek Online Holdings and to relinquish any role in company; Citron will still be company's largest shareholder, but Datek executives say they hope his departure will help end some of questions about company, which has become subject of growing number of criminal and regulatory inquiries; law enforcement officials say they are looking into Datek and Citron as part of investigation of Robert E Brennan, penny-stock promoter who has been banned from securities industry for life; Datek executives say they are unaware of any investigation into possible ties between Brennan and Datek and Citron but add that they are cooperating with several criminal and regulatory investigations; Edward J Nicoll, Datek's former president and chief operating officer, is named to replace Citron as chairman and chief executive; photo (M)

Growing number of mainstream companies are using guerrilla marketing teams, whose full-time job is to promote company products at grass-roots level; companies say purpose is mainly to reach younger consumers by cutting past all static that companies themselves create and that young people have tuned out--television, radio, print and Internet ads; companies say that with guerrilla marketing they can get higher sales and sometimes rejuvenate their images; some recent guerrilla marketing campaigns discussed; photo (M)

Lehigh Valley, Pa, once thought to be irretrievably damaged by collapse of steelmaking in area, is on rebound due in part to influx of new high-technology operations and expansion of business services; region's unemployment rate, which four years ago was 7.7 percent, is now only 3.7 percent, some 65 high-technology companies have moved into valley or been founded there in last five years, representing 38,500 jobs--or about 12 percent of area's total employment; it is striking example of extent to which high technology is transforming some of most damaged areas of Rust Belt's industrial economy; survey by state-financed economic agency indicates that technology companies accounted for 3,500 new jobs in valley last year, and are expected to create another 4,000 over next two years; graph; chart; photo (M)