Investors Wary; Dow Declines 15.36 Points

Wall Street stocks closed lower today for the second day running as concern over weak corporate earnings and technical factors dragged the market down.

The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials dropped 15.36 to 2,750.64, bringing its loss over the past two sessions to 43.73 points.

Declining issues outnumbered advances by more than 2 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange, with 484 up, 1,036 down and 447 unchanged.

Big Board volume totaled 175.99 million shares, against 155.21 million in the previous session.

The NYSE’s composite index fell 1.23 to 192.12.

Traders said key support levels were broken early in the trading day which tended to attract even more sellers.

Analysts said traders were disappointed by the market’s uninspired performance over the past several sessions since it began the new year with a sharp rise to a record high in the Dow Jones industrial average.

Some observers argue that hopes for an early-1990 rally had been running so high that they left stocks vulnerable to a letdown.

Wall Street also was bracing uneasily for corporate fourth-quarter earnings reports due out over the next few weeks. Profit projections for the period have been coming down steadily as evidence accumulated that the pace of business activity was sluggish at best.

Gold stocks and “country” closed-end funds including the Germany Fund were among the few gainers on an otherwise depressed day. Traders continued to bid enthusiastically for “country” funds seeking a way to benefit from new worldwide trade opportunities in the ‘90s.

Bond prices were unchanged to marginally higher in uneventful trading early today, as market participants awaited fresh signals on inflation.

The Treasury’s closely watched 30-year bond was unchanged at around midday and its yield was holding steady at 8.09%.

On Tuesday, bond prices were initially buoyed by a rally in the dollar and some buying by Japanese investors. But they later gave back their gains when the dollar lost ground against foreign currencies.

In the secondary market for Treasury securities, short-term government issues were unchanged to 1/32 point higher, intermediate issues also were flat to 1/32 point higher, as were long-term issues, according to figures provided by Telerate Inc.

The federal funds rate, the interest on overnight loans between banks, was quoted at 8 1/4%, up from 8 3/16% late Tuesday.