Business Notes

COMMODITIES Some Glitter Is Back in Gold

For most of the decade, gold has proved a lackluster investment, selling far below its glittering 1980 high of $850 an ounce. Last week, though, the market showed that it still had the stuff to stage an old-fashioned speculative rally. Trading volume in New York totaled 101,000 contracts. It was the third-biggest day in the market's history. Gold closed the week at $356.60, the highest level in 18 months.

The rally seemed a delayed reaction to the declining value of the dollar, down more than 20% since last February. Investors may also have bought bullion out of fear that hostilities might break out between Libya and the U.S.

The market had an element of mystery as well. The buying binge may have been fueled by a single investor group, possibly a Middle East consortium. One rumor has it that the Sultan of Brunei, monarch of the oil-rich country in northeast Borneo, has been buying millions of ounces of gold during the past month. He oversees a fortune estimated at $30 billion, and is said to be the world's richest man. Certainly he has the cash to play the gold market. TELEVISION Creating Static in the Skies

The American backyard is a battleground for the television industry. The subject of dispute: 1.5 million satellite dish antennas. These contraptions enable their owners to pick up free the 100-odd TV signals that fly through the sky. This is irksome to programmers transmitting shows to local cable operators via satellite. The industry estimates that it loses up to $700 million a year to commercial owners of dishes and forfeits additional income to private dish owners.

Last week two leading cable services, Home Box Office and Cinemax, which are both owned by Time Inc., acted to stymie this practice. The firms began scrambling their satellite transmissions so that dish owners who try to tune into those cable networks will get nothing but a garble. Fourteen other cable programmers, including MTV, CNN and Showtime, will follow suit. Showtime will start scrambling its signals in May.

Satellite-dish owners can receive those cable services by buying a device to unscramble the signals (price: $395). In addition, they will have to pay a monthly fee, just like cable viewers. RETAILING The British Are Leaving

In American retailing, it pays to be either chic or cheap. Upscale stores like Bloomingdale's are thriving, and discounters like Wal-Mart do well. The middle of the market, though, is a difficult place to set up shop.

Gimbels, a New York-based department-store chain founded in 1842 in Indiana, was put up for sale last week. It was a victim of the industry's vanishing middle. Gimbels' parent company, the British conglomerate B.A.T. Industries, is unloading Gimbels' flagship store in Manhattan, which once was a lively rival for nearby Macy's ("Does Gimbels tell Macy's?"), plus 35 other outlets in New York City, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Milwaukee.

B.A.T. will also shed an additional 57 U.S.-based retail stores. These include the Frederick & Nelson and Crescent stores in Oregon and Washington, as well as the Kohl's outlets in the Midwest. So far, no buyer has surfaced, but B.A.T. is expected eventually to receive about $600 million for Gimbels and the three other American retail chains. That cash will surely be used to pay off some of the B.A.T. debt, which totaled $2.5 billion at year's end. TELEPHONES Call to the Nearest Competitor

When AT&T was broken up in 1984, many companies looked forward to plugging into the phone business, which had been the near monopoly of Ma Bell. The $45 billion long-distance market seemed especially alluring. Most new carriers, though, have so far found no one at home. Some 80% of all American households still make long-distance phone calls through AT&T.

Last week two competitors decided to join forces in fighting AT&T. GTE announced that it will merge its Sprint subsidiary, the third largest U.S. long-distance operator, with U.S. Telecom, the fourth largest competitor. The new company will be called U.S. Sprint.

GTE has invested close to $2 billion in Sprint since it bought the business from Southern Pacific in 1983 for $750 million. Still, Sprint lost nearly $300 million in 1985 alone. Said Charles Schelke, an analyst at Smith Barney: "If GTE could have found someone willing to take the whole thing, it would have sold all of Sprint." GTE Chairman Theodore Brophy, though, insists that he had no intention of shedding Sprint. Said he: "The combined venture will be stronger than the sum of its components." INNOVATIONS And Now, a Throwaway Camera

Cameras have come a long way in the age of high tech, but many snapshot fans still yearn for the ultimate in simplicity. For shutterbugs who cannot tell an f-stop from an ASA reading and have no desire to learn, the latest attraction is nothing less than a throwaway camera. Sonora Industrial in Brazil is now selling the Love Camera, a push-button product that is compact, automatic and totally disposable. No adjustments, no mistakes, and, once the film is used, no camera. After the customer shoots the 20-exposure roll of 16-mm color film, the 2-in. by 3 1/2-in. device is cracked open like a walnut by an authorized processing lab. The film is then developed and sent to the consumer.

In 1978 Sonora President Nuno Caplan spotted a version of the camera in a Miami pharmacy. Intrigued, he bought the American company that manufactured it and had his engineers improve the design. Some 6 million of the throwaways have now been marketed. Priced at $10 or less, the camera is given away free as a promotional item by Revlon and other companies. Love's appeal is that all the user has to do is point and click.