The Orlando Sentinel from Orlando, Florida • Page 22

Story, A-1 Consumer confidence rises in December to highest level in 3 decades. Stocks, B-2 The Orlando Sentinel WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1999 Business Bi Aerodynamic Ford squeezes 70 miles from gallon of gas ASSOCIATED PRESS THE MARKETS Dow Jones 1 1 ,476.71 up 85.63 500 .........1,457.66, up 0.57 NYSE index 644.30, up 2.06 Nasdaq index 3,972.1 1 down 3.27 AMEX index 842.53, down 0.95 Dow Jones bond index .....97.52, up 0.44 Gold, N.Y. Merc $290.00, up $2.00 Silver, N.Y. Merc close $5,182, down $0,013 Dollar, Fed 92.87, unchanged Prime 8.50 Mortgages, 30-year, 1 point Treasury bonds, 30-year 6.47 Treasury index, Dec. 27 5.97 CPI, November 168.3 of high-tech improvements.

The car will be unveiled Jan. 10 at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. The Prodigy was developed under the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles, a joint effort by automakers and the federal government to design and build a prototype five-passenger car that gets 80 mpg by 2004 without compromising passenger needs. The U.S. government budgeted $240 million on PNGV development Please see CAR, B-6 DEARBORN, Mich.

The challenge to U.S. automakers from the federal government in 1993 seemed daunting: Build a car that gets 80 miles per gallon of gasoline without compromises in size, safety and price. But automakers, now say they're closing in on those goals. Ford Motor Co. has built a test car, the Prodigy, with the space and convenience of a Taurus sedan that gets more than 70 mpg thanks to a long list FORD MOTOR CO.

LOCAL INTEREST STOCKS Test car. Ford Motor Prodigy has a small, 4-cylinder turbocharged diesel engine and an electric motor linked to a battery pack in the trunk. AirTran 4.03 Albrtsn 32.94 50.88 Anhsr 69.88 BankA 49.31 BellSo 47.44 Boeing 41.31 Budget 8.94 LockM 19.56 Lucnt 77.00 1.25 Marriot 31.56 .25 Northp 51.81 JCPen 18.44 .19 Seagr 43.56 .44 Sears 29.50 SouthT 33.63 Sprint 69.00 Starwd 22.00 SunTrst 69.31 .13 Tribune 54.56 .69 Tricon 38.25 Tupwar 16.50 Walgrn 29.88 .78 WalMt 69.31 WDixie 24.81 1.00 .75 .88 .75 .31 2.88 .06 .31 CHCA 29.00 CoBnk 10.31 Web-site squatters get rich off names Dardn 17.88 Show is over at Interstate 6 AMC Theatre Delta 49.13 Disney 29.00 FirstU 33.31 24.81 19.81 Harris Hughs 1 ft Stock updates: orlandosentinel.comstocks Got an idea for a dotcom? It's probably already been dreamt up by these most modern of entrepreneurs. 11-. 1 i iii, 1 1 i I IF------ 7 1 REUTERS Sales coming in strong Retailers eryoyed a strong holiday sales season thanks to last-minute buying, key sales surveys showed Tuesday.

Bank of Tokyo-Misubishi and Schroder Co. said that same-store sales at 80 retailers tracked in a weekly survey rose by 5.9 percent last week compared with the same week last year. For the full month of December, BTM-Schroder said major retailers are likely to post a sales increase of 5 percent to 6 percent. In another major retail survey, LJR Redbook said retail sales for the week ended Dec. 25 rose by 4.9 percent.

Russian loan under fire A $100 million World Bank loan to Russia came under fire TAiesday from human-rights activists, who said it could help fund Moscow's military campaign in breakaway Chechnya. Human Rights Watch and other groups said the bank, which quietly approved the payment this week, should have followed the lead of the International Monetary Fund and the U.S. Export-Import Bank and suspended loan payments during the war. Firm to monitor sell-off A New York accounting firm has been appointed to monitor maintenance of service stations and other assets that are to be sold as part of the $81 billion merger that produced the Exxon Mobil Corp. The Fed r.Mlt! imii.iniK.Kiiiii.iimrTi cm I I eral Trade Commission announced Tuesday that De- EYpn Mobil FRANK RIVERATHE ORLANDO SENTINEL LOS ANGELES When he was 13, Mark Zonarich ran his own curb-painting business.

Now he is a 19-year-old architecture student building castles in cyberspace by dreaming up Internet addresses and selling them to the highest bidders. Like the California gold rush of the 1840s, entrepreneurs are digging deep this time into the dictionary or thesaurus for dotcom nuggets as the business of Internet domain names becomes a fast way to a fortune. "It's a bit like buying a painting at a garage sale and finding out it is a Picasso and it is too valuable to hang in your home," said Tim Pluma, sales director of Greatdomains.com, a California-based domain-names broker. In December, a California company paid a record $7.5 million for an Internet address when it bought the rights to use the domain name business.com from a Houston entrepreneur. America.com is up for sale at an asking price of $10 million.

could be yours for $2 million. Tens of thousands of other names, ranging from the quirky to the obvious, are changing hands for a fistful of dollars in the cyber equivalent of real estate. All you need is an eye for invention and $70 to register an Internet domain name not already, in use. Players in the market range from college students such as Zonarich with talent and time on their hands to small-business people who spotted the potential two or three years ago and registered dozens of addresses. But the practice could face a major obstacle if legislation pending in Congress to prohibit domain "squatting" is passed.

However, for people such as Texas businessman Jeremy Baldwin, it's proving lucrative while it lasts. Baldwin jumped in a couple Please see NAMES, B-4 Only 6. The move toward megaplexes, which usually have at least 14 screens, has left the Interstate 6 theater behind in ticket sales. Diane Thompson (above) sells tickets to the 6 movies showing at the theater Tuesday. Movie house to end long run on Friday By Jerry Jackson OF THE SENTINEL STAFF The Interstate 6 AMC Theatre in Alta-monte Springs will close Friday, ending a 25-year run for the six-screen movie house in the former Interstate Mall.

The company running the theater decided not to renew the property lease when it expired. Brenda Nolte, a spokeswoman for AMC Theatres said Tuesr day the facility is now too small to meet consumer demand for larger, multiple-screen operations. "The numbers have proven that the megaplex is the consumer's choice," Nolte said. To qualify as a megaplex these day, she said, a theater needs at least 14 screens, stadium-style seating, a digital sound system and oversized screens. When the Altamonte Springs theater opened in 1974, six screens were more than adequate, Nolte said, and the facility was state-of-the-art.

"We've been there for 25 years, and it served us well," she said. "But now the megaplex is the theater of choice, and that's the direction we're going." Five megaplexes, each with at least 20 screens, have opened in the Orlando area during the past 18 months, with a sixth scheduled to debut next spring. AMC, based in Kansas City, has seven theaters in metropolitan Orlando with a combined 78 screens. It opened a 24-screen theater in Tampa earlier this year and has another 20-screen facility planned for that area next year, Nolte said. She said she did not know whether any Orlando-area locations might be targeted for expansion.

Please see CLOSING, B-4 loitte Consulting LLC of New York City will act as trustee for the 2,431 service stations, a Benicia, refinery and other assets that Exxon Corp. and Mobil Corp. agreed to sell as a part of the merger process. As trustee, De-loitte will monitor operations of the stations and other assets and ensure that they are maintained in commercially viable condition until the divestiture is completed, FTC officials said. Team to buy aircraft maker German insurer Allianz AG and U.S.

investment group Clayton, Dubilier Rice Inc. said Tuesday they were, teaming up to take control of troubled Fairchild Aerospace Corp. in a $1.2 billion deal. The transaction calls for a $400 million injection into the privately held, cash-strapped maker of small airplanes to fund the production of new aircraft. will hold about 75 percent of Fairchild, and Allianz will hold about 25 percent.

San Antonio-based Fairchild makes regional jets, business jets and corporate shuttles. Oil futures near 9-year high Energy shares posted modest gains Tuesday amid support from crude oil prices rallying close to nine-year highs, mainly on bullish expectations that U.S. petroleum stockpiles will be tapped. In response, oil futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange piled on an additional 20 cents to $27.02 in the aftermarket, or within striking distance of the nine-year high of $27.15 reached on Nov. 22.

Supporting role. Alesia Presley cleans up the lobby at Interstate 6. This is the theater's last week. We have something unique down here which is a store that caters to people. Jack Yonally Cramped aisles but real smiles: Now this is a store, owner says Vvl tier Compiled from staff and wire reports.

ASSOCIATED PRESS Check orlandosentlnel.com after 3 p.m. forCFB3 business news updates at: orlandosentinel.com businesscfb3.htm wear (at least 15 styles of women's briefs), cotton housedress-es, hospital scrubs, aprons, hats, gloves, snow jackets, towels, shower curtains, slippers and more. To be certain, suburban megamalls are casting a huge shadow on downtowns across America. Wal-Marts and Kmarts are luring customers to sprawling aisles while the Internet allows people to shop for pajamas while they're in their pajamas. And still, Yonally can draw shoptfcrs to the cramped and slightly musty store, where most of the linoleum-covered aisles are wide enough for just one person and stopping in requires finding a place to park downtown.

"This is the way retailing was meant to be," said Yonally, who bought the store three years ago after being general manager for 15 years. People are tired of big-box retailers where displays in every store are identical, he said. "We have something unique down here which is a store Pease see STORE. B-4 ALBANY, N.Y. How do you keep a downtown clothing store that has been around since 1867 alive in the next century? Same formula as the last century, according to retailer Jack Yonally: good prices, attentive service and lots of underwear and socks.

That is the key to the survival of the 132-year-old B. Lodge to. The store is piled high with sweaters, sweats, under Watch Central Florida News 13 on Time Warner Cable after 5:30 p.m. for Central Florida Business Update. ASSOCIATED PRESS The basics.

Forget bas-code readers proprietor Jack Yonally and son Mark use good, old-fashioned cash registers..