20 Years Ago on AOL.com: Feb. 22, 1999 -- Tech Stocks Rocket, Plus a Sampling of Finance News Items (Including a Bernie Madoff Cameo)

February 22, 1999: We started the day with a Personal Finance promo on top stocks and mutual funds (along with computer buying and online auctions), which was a nice transition into...

...the PM update, where tech stocks apparently had a good day.

As mentioned, we focused a lot on tech stocks in our Personal Finance features, because of 1. Dotcom Bubble and 2. Stock Options:

 

Side note: As I was looking at CNN Money stories from 2/22/99, here's a sampling of other items:

• Securitas bought Pinkerton's, creating the world's largest full-service security firm
• A check-in on the Microsoft antitrust trial, where the government used Microsoft internal emails during a cross-examination of firm general manager of new technology Daniel Rosen to show that the company did see Netscape as a competitor. (Rosen admitted to composing the email but not sending it. Yeah.)
• A Nasdaq panel voted against trading halts for the Nasdaq, which were seen as a way to help protect small, individual investors—many of whom were new players thanks to online brokerage firms. Irony alert: Quoted in the article: "Bernard Madoff, head of a trading firm that matches buyers and sellers on Nasdaq who supports the use of halts, predicts they will be approved eventually but says they won't be a cure-all. 'The halts aren't going to cure volatility, they're just going to limit it,' he told CNNfn."

[Series note: In the late 1990s, I programmed the content for the AOL.com home page, which relaunched with a new design on July 14, 1998. I printed screencaps and saved them. 20 years later, I'm scanning them in and posting them with a little commentary under the tag #20YearsAgoOnAOLcom.]