As all about them were coming up smiling, Lotus Development Corp shares were rocked on Wednesday by a rumour, eventually firmly denied, that the stock was to be replaced in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index by Microsoft Corp: no truth in it, but the power of the index – many trust fund managers are constrained to hold only S&P 500 shares – caused Lotus shares to dip 75 cents to $21.25 as holders rushed to sell on the rumour ahead of the inevitable decline that would have followed as fund managers dumped their Lotus stock to buy Microsoft, had there been any truth in the naughty talk.
