most-watched morning programs among female
viewers and earned several Emmy Awards before it
was discontinued in 2004 in the midst of Stewart’s
legal troubles.
In 1997, Stewart founded a new company, Martha
Stewart Living Omnimedia, an umbrella company
for her diverse publishing, television, online, and
merchandising ventures. In October, 1999, Stewart
took her company public in an initial public offer-
ing. Stock prices for Martha Stewart Living Omni-
media skyrocketed, and Stewart, owner of 60 per-
cent of the company’s shares, amassed paper assets
worth more than $1 billion almost overnight. In
2000, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia reported
profits in excess of $21 million with annual sales of
over $285 million.
Impact Stewart represents a smart, ambitious, and
attractive woman, whose judgments on food, home
decor, and style have achieved the status of theGood
Housekeepingseal of approval. With the authority
of her brand name, Stewart has been able to expand
into new product lines, from paint to bedding to
stationery, but she has also been the subject of
scorn and ridicule in what suggests a double stan-
dard for traits often deemed praiseworthy in male
executives.
Subsequent Events In 2002, Stewart came under
federal investigation for insider stock trading as a re-
sult of her suspicious sale of nearly four thousand
shares of ImClone stocks on December 27, 2001, the
day prior to a Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
announcement declaring that the company’s prom-
ising cancer drug would not be reviewed. In 2003,
Stewart was indicted by a federal grand jury for secu-
rities fraud, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy,
and she stepped down from her position as chair-
man and chief executive officer of Martha Stewart
Living Omnimedia. In 2004, she was convicted of ob-
struction of justice and lying to investigators and was
sentenced to five months in prison, followed by five
months of house arrest. Following her release, Stew-
art returned to her varied business activities, includ-
ing her daily television show.
Further Reading
Allen, Lloyd.Being Martha: The Inside Stor y of Martha
Stewart and Her Amazing Life.Hoboken, N.J.: John
Wiley & Sons, 2006.
Byron, Christopher.Martha Inc.: The Incredible Stor y of
Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.New York: John
Wiley & Sons, 2002.
Price, Joann F.Martha Stewart: A Biography. Westport,
Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2007.
Martin J. ManningSee also Business and the economy in the United
States; Stock market; Television; Winfrey, Oprah;
Women in the workforce. Stock market
Definition A public exchange for the trading of
shares of company stock
Both a symbol and major component of the economy, the
U.S. stock market soared during the 1990’s, increasing
nearly fourfold. The 1990’s represented one of the great
decade-long bull markets of the centur y, with the most explo-
sive growth coming in the prices of Internet stocks, which
reached dizzying highs by decade end.
The 1980’s had been a historic decade for the U.S.
stock market. The most widely watched American
stock market index, the Dow Jones Industrial Aver-
age (the Dow), had risen 226 percent over the ten-
year period. On January 2, 1990, the Dow stood near
record levels at 2,702. Stock exchanges of other in-
dustrialized nations were also enjoying record levels.
The world’s second-largest stock market, Japan’s
Nikkei 225 index, experienced an even more mete-
oric rise, soaring from its July, 1984, level of 9,703 to
37,189 on January 3, 1990.
The year 1990, however, proved difficult for the
U.S. stock market. Iraq invaded Kuwait that summer.
A recession that would last until 1991 did further
damage to the market, and the Dow declined by 20
percent. Its decline was taken to represent the end of
the historic bull market that lasted from 1982 to
1990 (a bull market represents a period of broad ad-
vances for the stock exchange; a bear market repre-
sents a period of broad, and often swift, decline for
the exchange). The Dow is the representative index
for the nation’s leading stock exchange—the New
York Stock Exchange—on which most of the Dow
stocks trade. By the end of 1990, other exchanges
had fallen significantly as well. The second- and
third-largest exchanges in the United States—the
American Stock Exchange and the National Associa-The Nineties in America Stock market 811