REVERSE SPIN: Lynch cashes in $53 million of FMR chips

Why do I suddenly wish I were Peter Lynch’s love child? Could it have anything to do with the fact that the white-haired wonder of Fidelity Investments has sold a slice of his shares in the privately held mutual fund giant for $53 million, according to a regulatory filing?

Mr. Lynch sold 60,566 shares in FMR Corp., Fidelity’s parent company, between June 1, 1999, and Aug. 31, 2000. He received $9 million in cash and a promissory note for $44 million, the filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission said.

Mr. Lynch, 57, is vice chairman and a director of FMR Corp. He became famous running Fidelity’s flagship Magellan Fund for 13 years, until May 1990.

More recently, he has been featured nationally in a Fidelity advertising campaign.

Getting & spending

You can just put that on my gold card, thank you very much.

Americans’ incomes grew modestly in August, but they spent heavily, pushing the rate of savings to its lowest level on record, the Department of Commerce said on Friday. Consumer spending rose 0.6% in August, keeping pace with July’s increase.

Personal income — including wages, salaries, benefit payments and other sources of income — gained 0.4% in August after a 0.3% jump in the previous month.

With spending outpacing income, the amount of after-tax income left over after spending fell to a negative 0.4% — the lowest rate since the Commerce Department began tracking such data in 1959.

A negative savings rate suggests consumers are financing shopping sprees through borrowing, previous savings or gains from investments.

U.S. bond market gets Danish pastry

Call it a Dane reaction. Yields in most U.S. credit markets fell on Thursday as investors focused on Denmark’s rejection of the euro and as U.S. stock markets rallied strongly.

Long-dated U.S. Treasury yields — which move in the opposite direction of prices — fell only slightly as oil prices dropped $1.12 to $30.34 a barrel on a pledge by Saudi Arabia that it would increase supply.

The 30-year T-bond closed with a gain of $0.218 to $105.0625 as its yield fell to 5.89%.

Denmark voted against adopting the euro, dealing the currency another blow after weeks of declines and less than a week after major central banks intervened in the foreign exchange markets to prop it up.

Saudi Arabia bans all Firestone tires

Speaking of Saudi Arabia, troubled tire maker Bridgestone/Firestone Inc. said Wednesday that Saudi Arabia had banned all imports of its tires.

It is the first country to initiate such a ban since a brouhaha erupted last month over Firestone tires’ connection to dozens of deaths.

Firestone, a unit of Japan’s Bridgestone Corp., called the Saudi action “extreme and uncalled for” and said it had made a complaint to the U.S. government.

There’s a new CEO

at 3Com Corp.

There’s some moving and shaking going on at 3Com Corp.

On Thursday, the Santa Clara, Calif., technology company announced that Bruce Claflin, president and chief operating officer, will replace Eric Benhamou as chief executive and that Mr. Benhamou will remain as chairman.

The move, which comes two years after Mr. Claflin joined 3Com, takes effect Jan. 1.

On Tuesday, 3Com reported a fiscal first-quarter loss that was far narrower than expected as sales outpaced analyst expectations.