By Stephen Miller
Alan Abelson, a former editor of Barron's and the longtime
writer of the financial weekly's influential Up and Down Wall
Street column, died Thursday.
Mr. Abelson, age 87, had been on medical leave for about three
months, said Barron's editor and president, Edwin Finn.
Mr. Abelson served for 11 years as editor of Barron's, ending in
1993 and stayed on to write the column he began in 1966. He was
still writing it when he took his leave of absence.
A pugnacious and witty columnist, Mr. Abelson was famed for
challenging companies and their chief executives over what he
considered inflated share prices. He was accused more than once of
being in cahoots with short-sellers, who bet a company's stock
price will fall--an accusation he denied.
Mr. Abelson was a native New Yorker. He studied chemistry and
English at City College and had a master's degree in creative
writing from the University of Iowa.
He was hired as a copyboy at the New York Journal-American in
1949 and became a reporter before moving to the newspaper's
financial desk. He served as its stock-market columnist before
joining Barron's in 1956. He was named managing editor in 1965.
Barron's, which like The Wall Street Journal is published by
News Corp. (NWS), plans to continue Mr. Abelson's column under the
authorship of Randall Forsyth, who took over on an interim basis
when Mr. Abelson took his leave.
Email: remembrances@wsj.com
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