Blue Chips Edge Higher in Quiet Trading

Wall Street’s blue chips squeezed out small gains at the end of a quiet session Tuesday, but the broader market trailed ahead of next week’s presidential election and Friday’s jobs data.

The Dow Jones index of 30 industrials managed to eke out a 2.31-point gain at 2,150.96. The blue chip indicator oscillated between a few points higher and a few points lower through most of the session.

The broader market ended lower. Declining issues edged out advances by around 8 to 7 on the New York Stock Exchange.

It was the second straight dull day on Wall Street, and analysts predicted an uneventful market for the rest of the week as activity stalls before the presidential election next Tuesday.

Market participants also are awaiting Friday’s release of U.S. unemployment data for October.

“We’re just killing time,” said Jack Solomon, an analyst for Bear, Stearns & Co. “There’s just no clear-cut leadership.”

Wall Street shrugged off the Commerce Department’s report that the index of leading indicators, the main forecasting gauge of future economic activity, edged down 0.1% in September. It was the second such decline in the past three months.

The September decline was close to market expectations.

“You know what it is to watch paint dry on a wall?” said Bill Raftery, an analyst for Smith Barney, Harris Upham & Co.

The market also was unmoved by a renewed decline in the dollar, which had perturbed it on Monday.

For the second day in a row, currency dealers said, the Federal Reserve intervened in the foreign exchange market to bolster the dollar by buying the U.S. currency and selling Japanese yen.

Despite the central bank’s action, the dollar finished at around 125.07 yen in New York, down from 125.67 yen late Monday.

Some market participants also are awaiting indications from Tuesday’s meeting of the Fed’s Federal Open Market Committee. Many observers expect that the central bank, meeting only a week before the presidential election, will decide to keep credit policy and interest rates stable.

NYSE volume totaled 151.25 million shares, up from 143.46 million in Monday’s session.

Among actively traded issues on the NYSE, RJR Nabisco jumped 1 to 85. The consumer products company is the object of a $20.3-billion bid from the investment firm of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. AT&T; was unchanged at 28 5/8; American Express rose to 27 3/8; IBM surged 1 3/8 to 124, and Tandem gained 1 at 15 7/8.

Sears, Roebuck & Co., which announced a major restructuring Monday, was unchanged at 41 3/4. Food giant Kraft, which agreed Sunday to be acquired by tobacco company Philip Morris for $13.1 billion, slipped 5/8 to 102 7/8. Union Carbide was down 1/2 at 25.

In foreign trading, share prices drifted through the day in Tokyo in moderate trading. The Nikkei 225-share index gained 31.13 points to 28,013.67.

Shares prices rose in subdued dealings on the London Stock Exchange as the market shrugged off a long-awaited autumn economic statement from Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson. The Financial Times 100-share index rose 5.4 to 1,857.8.