Who sez March goes out like a lamb? We added 244 Hybrid stocks in last 3 days

By: Ray Pellecchia

File Under: NYSE, NYSE

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The breeze is blowing a little warmer off the Hudson in the morning, and in the Trinity Church cemetery, daffodils are making the most of the longer sunlight. But inside these four walls at 11 Wall St., the winds of change are blowing as the Hybrid Market continues to, well, take root. (I think I've tortured that metaphor quite enough, don't you agree?)

The velocity of change is accelerating (it never seems to do anything but). Last Friday, we added 135 stocks to Phase I; yesterday, 11; and today, another 98.

Here’s the updated .pdf of activated stocks, which now total 398. As a reminder, we expect Phase I to be completely rolled out to all stocks in the next 2-3 weeks, followed by announcement of the next phase. And please note, for ease of maintenance this list will now be updated exclusively through HybridTalk; the list no longer lives in its previous location at nyse.com/hybrid. I also arranged a book deal and bought the movie rights, so don’t get any ideas.

For those of you not already numbed by my numerology trivia, what can a humble blogger say about the number 398?

· Not one but two U.S. warships proudly bore the number 398: the USS Ellett, a 1,500-ton destroyer that worked the Battle of Midway and the invasion of Guadalcanal; and the USS Segundo, a diesel-powered submarine that served the Navy from 1944-70, during which she received four battle stars in WW II and one in the Korean War.

· 398 Admete is a typical Main belt asteroid, according to Wikipedia. Its semi-major axis is 409.875 GM, its perihelion is 318.479 Gm, and its aphelion is 501.271 Gm. Like I said, typical.

· Issue 398 of the journal Nature reports on nuclear fusion from explosions of laser-heated deuterium clusters. And you should see what those lasers do to peanut clusters; the caramel gets all gooey.

And in case you're still with me, here’s a bonus feature, “March 28: This Date in History”:

· Born on March 28 in 1905 was naturalist Marlin Perkins, who hosted “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom” on TV back in my day. Marlin’s sidekick Jim Fowler always seemed to be swamp-wrestling an angry tapir while Marlin would stand off to the side and do the segue to the commercial: “While Jim needs urgent medical assistance, you can protect your family in times of medical emergency with our good friends at Mutual of Omaha…”

· On this date in 1979 was the disaster at Three Mile Island, and of course there is nothing amusing about that subject, unless you recall the “Saturday Night Live” spoof of “The China Syndrome” called “The Pepsi Syndrome.” A spilled soft drink at a nuclear reactor leads to disaster, and a visiting President Jimmy Carter (Dan Ackroyd) uses his nuclear-engineering background to try to save the day and ends up mutated by exposure to radiation. Classic exchange between reporter and press secretary at press conference:

Reporter: Is it true that the president is 100 feet tall?

Press Secretary: That's nonsense! Of course not!

Reporter: Is it true that he's 90 feet tall?

Press Secretary: No comment