Dow Rises 9.95 on Strength of Tech, Oil Issues
Wall Street’s Dow Jones index closed with a buying flourish in quiet trading Thursday before the long holiday weekend, propelled by a surge in oil stocks and a rebound in the technology segment.
The Dow Jones industrial index, depressed most of the day, rose 9.95 to finish at 1,988.06.
With many traders taking off early for the Easter holiday that begins Friday, New York Stock Exchange volume was a light 140 million shares. Rising issues narrowly outnumbered falling stocks 8-7.
Advancing issues outnumbered declines by about 6 to 5 on the New York Stock Exchange, with 824 up, 678 down and 479 unchanged.
Big Board volume came to 139.87 million shares, down from 151.81 million in the previous session. The NYSE’s composite index added .38 to 146.60.
Analysts said traders were reluctant to carry big positions through the weekend, especially with a Labor Department report due out today on employment for March.
Despite the strength in the oil and high-tech computer groups, many market segments remained depressed by a weak dollar, which has sparked fears that foreigners will dump dollar-denominated assets. That concern is particularly high with the end of the Japanese fiscal year earlier Thursday, a time when Japanese companies could decide to divest themselves of U.S. equities, analysts said.
Both the stock and bond markets will be closed today, and thus will not have a chance to respond to any surprises in the employment data until Monday.
Brokers said money managers at investing institutions had pretty much completed maneuvers to ready their portfolios for reports to clients on their performance in the first quarter as of Thursday’s close.
The market’s zigzag price action left the blue chip index with a small 9.02-point gain for the shortened week, following last week’s steep 108.42-point drop.
Reflecting on the market’s overall performance this week, Monte Gordon of Dreyfus Co. said some of the fears that emerged during last week’s tumble may have subsided but they have not disappeared. “This week was reflective of the continued inability to gain definition of the many cross currents tugging on the market, such as interest rates and the dollar,” he said.
The market got something of a boost from a rally in the shares of International Business Machines and Digital Equipment, two widely followed stocks that have been slumping lately. IBM shares climbed 2 1/2 to 107 5/8 and Digital rose 1 3/4 to 104 1/2.
Atlantic Richfield rose 2 1/2 to 84. The company said its first-quarter earnings are expected to come in above $2 a share, against $1.31 in the comparable period last year.
In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225-share average fell 59.81 to close at 26,260.26. On Wednesday, stocks soared 366.98 points to their highest level since the Oct. 19 global market crash.
In London, the Financial Times 100-share index closed down 14.4 points at 1,742.5.
