MARKET DATA PERSPECTIVES

In 1977, sitting listening to the pirate Radio Caroline in my bedroom back home in Essex, England, I heard the news that Elvis Presley was dead. Last Wednesday, in our New York newsroom on Lafayette Street, I got the phone call I'd been half-expecting for some weeks: Dow Jones had decided to put its Dow Jones Markets unit to sleep.

Of course, we journalists love to be dramatic. But this really was a historic moment. By effectively pulling the plug on Ken Burenga's $650 million revamp plan, Dow