In Business This Week

PHILIP MORRIS SAYS, WAIT A MINUTE...

Cheaper cheap smokes? Just five days before it was set to raise wholesale prices of its discount cigarettes by 8.2%, Philip Morris said on Aug. 4 that it would cut wholesale prices by some 4.1% on its Famous Value, Basic, Cambridge, Alpine, Bristol, and Bucks brands. Why? Mainly because rivals R.J. Reynolds, Lorillard, etc., weren't going to raise their discount prices. That meant Philip Morris would have been the only company hawking high-priced discount cigarettes. Its stock closed at 47 on Aug. 4, down 1/2.EDITED BY KEITH H. HAMMONDS