Stocks End Week With Mixed Effort; DJ Off 5
The stock market closed out a mixed and trendless week with a moderate decline Friday.
The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials dropped 5.82 to 1,356.52, finishing the week with a net loss of 12.32 points. Other, broader market measures posted small weekly gains.
Friday’s volume on the New York Stock Exchange came to 101.81 million shares, against 123.14 million on Thursday.
Analysts said selling pressure on some prominent blue chips that set in late Thursday unsettled many traders. General Motors, for example, dropped 1 to 64 5/8, hitting a 52-week low for the second consecutive session.
Ford Motor, which posted a 17.5% decline in its third-quarter earnings, lost 3/4 to 45 3/8.
Even though the Dow Jones industrial average reached a record high last week, market watchers have expressed concern about an absence of quality “leadership.”
Texas Oil-U.S. Steel Talks
Trading interest has been concentrated on shifting day-to-day takeover rumors, they say, and those circumstances aren’t likely to be conducive to a sustained and broad market advance.
Texas Oil & Gas dropped 3/8 to 19 and U.S. Steel was down 1 at 28. The two companies said they were talking about a possible business combination but have reached no agreement.
Delta Air Lines fell 1 to 38. The company reported that its earnings for the first fiscal quarter ended Sept. 30 declined to 74 cents a share from $1.51 in the comparable period a year earlier.
Elsewhere in the airline group, UAL gave up 1 to 47, AMR 3/4 to 39 and Eastern to 7 1/8.
Among computer and technology issues, International Business Machines slipped 5/8 to 128, Digital Equipment dropped 1 1/2 to 110 and Texas Instruments was down 1 7/8 at 92 5/8.
When IBM, often described as a market bellwether, briefly topped 130 earlier in the week, it brought cheers from many chart-watching traders. But the stock failed to hold above that point.
Colonial Penn Group jumped 3 1/8 to 33 1/8. FPL Group, parent holding company of Florida Power & Light, said it planned to acquire Colonial Penn for $35 a share.
H. H. Robertson, which reported a loss for the third quarter of more than $5.8 million, dropped 1 1/8 to 24 5/8.
Most bond prices finished Friday’s session with slight declines, and trading was generally quiet.
In the secondary market for Treasury securities, prices of short-term governments edged down 1/32, intermediate maturities fell between 2/32 and 15/32 and long-term issues dropped 21/32 point.
The Merrill Lynch daily Treasury index, which measures price movements on all outstanding Treasury issues with maturities of a year or longer, fell 0.19 to 106.35. The Shearson Lehman daily Treasury bond index, which makes a similar measurement, fell 1.85 to 1,116.24.
In corporate trading, industrials and utilities were down point in light trading.
Among tax-exempt municipal bonds, general obligations and revenue bonds fell 1/2 point in light trading.
Yields on three-month Treasury bills fell 4 basis points to 7.23%. Six-month bills were off 2 basis points at 7.40%, while one-year bills edged down 1 basis point to 7.49%. A basis point is one-hundredth of a percentage point.
