Stocks Hurt by Worries Over Interest Rates : ‘Triple Witching Hour’ Also Keeps Traders Wary

Wall Street’s blue chip stocks closed lower for the second straight day Thursday as interest rate fears and wariness ahead of today’s expiration of stock futures and options kept many investors out of the market.

The Dow Jones index of 30 industrials slipped 1.25 to 2,133.00, bringing its loss since the start of the week to 10.49 points.

Declining issues outnumbered advances by more than 3 to 2 in nationwide trading of New York Stock Exchange-listed stocks. Big Board volume came to 136.82 million shares, against 132.35 million in the previous session.

Today, the last trading will occur in a series of expiring stock index futures, index options and options on individual stocks.

This quarterly “triple witching hour,” when program traders engaged in multiple strategies move to close out their positions, has been less stormy for the stock market in 1988 than it often was in previous years.

Still, analysts said, it gave investors another reason to take a wary approach in a difficult, sluggish trading environment.

Semiconductors Do Well

Some interest rate increases in Europe, meanwhile, heightened recent speculation that the Federal Reserve might soon raise its discount rate.

Many investing institutions that managed to squeeze positive results from their portfolios earlier in the year are waiting out the last couple of weeks before New Year’s simply hoping to keep those results intact, brokers say.

Tiger International rose 2 1/8 to 16 7/8. Late Wednesday, the company said it had been approached by a party it didn’t name about a possible takeover.

Semiconductor stocks were a notable bright spot after Merrill Lynch raised its ratings on the group.

Texas Instruments, which said it had developed a new type of integrated circuit, climbed 1 1/4 to 38 7/8; Motorola gained 3/4 to 40 1/2; National Semiconductor rose 3/8 to 9 1/2, and Intel added 1 to 22 3/8 in the over-the-counter market.

Micron Technology gained 3/4 to 15 5/8 in OTC trading. The company reported earnings for its fiscal first quarter ended Dec. 1 of 88 cents a share, up from 33 cents in the comparable period a year ago.

Tesoro Petroleum added 5/8 to 11 7/8. The company said it received an unsolicited $13.50-a-share takeover proposal from an investor group.

The Wilshire index of 5,000 equities closed down 8.547 at 2,695.817.

The NYSE’s composite index of all its listed common stocks fell 0.55 to 154.17.

Standard & Poor’s industrial index fell 1.17 to 316.24, and S&P;’s 500-stock composite index was down 1.03 at 274.18.

The NASDAQ composite index for the over-the-counter market rose 0.24 to 373.01. At the American Stock Exchange, the market value index closed at 294.31, down 0.69.

On the Tokyo Stock Exchange, stock prices lost their early gains Thursday and ended on a weak note, reflecting investors’ concerns about rising world interest rates. The Nikkei 225-share index slipped 48.98 points to close at 29,705.75.

However, share prices closed higher on the London Stock Exchange, boosted by news that British wage growth slowed in October and by some speculative buying of several major stocks. The Financial Times 100-share index closed up 7.1 points at 1,763.2, near the session peak.