Citing lack of demand for its products,...

Citing lack of demand for its products, Caterpiller Inc. announced that it will indefinitely lay off 270 employees from its plants in Joliet and Peoria, Ill. . . . The Investment Company Institute reported that the assets of the nation’s 534 money market mutual funds rose $16.38 billion in the week ended Jan. 9, shattering the previous record increase set the week of the 1987 stock market collapse. . . . COMTEC Market Analysis Services says there are 1,953,476 facsimile machines in the United States--43.1% more than at the start of 1990--and those machines send or receive 246 million pages per week.