The 30 stocks in the Dow Jones industrial average, badlybattered though they may be, are priced at 19 times earnings, uncomfortably above their long-term average of 15.
"The commercial is an utterly offensive, childishly obvious attempt to resuscitate a badlybattered reputation for purely commercial purposes with what I'm sure somebody imagines to be one 'bold stroke, '" says Martin Puris, a longtime ad agency executive who is now CEO of Engine USA, an integrated communications company in New York.