FINANCIAL MARKETS : STOCKS : Selected Buying in Blue Chips Adds 12 to Dow
Stock prices rose Tuesday as buying in certain blue chip issues outweighed, at least for now, concerns that corporate earnings for the second quarter will be poor.
The Dow Jones index of 30 industrials, which rose 18.57 points on Monday, added another 12.37 to close at 2,911.63.
Trading was slow on the eve of the Fourth of July holiday, with Big Board volume totaling 130 million shares traded, down slightly from Monday’s 130.20 million.
U.S. financial markets will be closed today.
The Dow has risen in each of the past five sessions, and Tuesday’s close marked the first time that the index has finished above 2,900 since June 21. The record Dow close was set June 15 at 2,935.89.
Advancing issues outnumbered declines by about eight to seven in nationwide trading of New York Stock Exchange-listed stocks, with 834 up, 650 down and 503 unchanged.
The market appeared to shrug aside the Commerce Department’s report that orders to factories for manufactured goods rose 2.1% in May, offsetting a revised 2.1% decline the previous month. The rise was widely expected.
Philip Morris was the most active NYSE issue, rising 7/8 to 48, a new 52-week high. Other Dow component stocks that helped power the rise: Woolworth, up 1 to 34 1/8 and Primerica, up 3/4 to 35 1/4.
High-tech stocks were mixed. Among Southland-based issues, electronics distributor Bell Industries jumped 1 1/8 to 17 3/4, and personal computer maker Tandon Corp. rocketed 7/16 to 3 3/4 in heavy trading.
But Mentor Graphic plunged 4 3/8 to 17 5/8 after projecting lower-than-expected second-quarter earnings. And Santa Barbara-based Digital Sound lost 1/2 to 4 1/2 after tumbling 4 1/4 Monday, on news that the voicemail equipment firm expects a second-quarter loss.
Despite general earnings worries, many growth stocks continued to advance as investors hunted for companies whose businesses remain on track. K Swiss jumped 2 to 25, Dreyer’s Ice Cream rose 1 1/8 to 41 7/8, Diagnostic Products gained 2 to 38 1/4 and Waste Management added 1 to 42 7/8.
In Tokyo, a stronger yen boosted shares to a higher close but there was scattered buying of the cash indexes and some high-technology blue chip stocks. The 225-share Nikkei average was up 254.37 points to 32,414.60.
Stocks recovered ground late in the session to finish little changed on the London Stock Exchange. The Financial Times-Stock Exchange 100-index finished 0.3 point lower at 2,371.7.
Domestic investors scrambled to take profits after foreign buying on boosted share prices nearly 2% in West Germany. The 30-share DAX index closed 9.07 points lower at 1,906.23.
