Stocks Mixed in Advance of Holiday : Market Overview
The stock market struggled to a mixed showing, and the pace of trading slowed after a modest early advance faded.
* Treasury bond yields edged higher as the market focused on a poorly received auction of five-year Treasury notes.
Stocks
The Dow Jones average, up more than 10 points in the early going, closed with a 7.56-point loss at 3,313.54.
But gainers slightly outnumbered losers in the daily tally on the New York Stock Exchange. Big Board volume totaled 234.14 million shares, down from 250.43 million on Tuesday.
The NASDAQ composite index was boosted by a handful of sharp technology gainers and rose 2.12 points to close at 662.96.
Brokers look for a quiet Christmas Eve session today, with a good many market participants getting an early start on the long holiday weekend. The markets are scheduled to close two hours early, at 2 p.m. EST.
With just five sessions remaining in 1992, the Dow Jones Industrial Average shows a net gain of 144.71 points, or 4.57%, since last New Year’s.
Among the market highlights:
* Pharmaceutical stocks declined broadly on analysts’ wary appraisals of the industry profit outlook. Pfizer fell 3 1/8 to 74; Merck 1 3/4 to 45; Eli Lilly 7/8 to 63 1/8, and Johnson & Johnson 1 1/2 to 51 5/8.
* Oracle Systems, the most active issue in the NASDAQ market, jumped 8 1/2 to 27 7/8 after the company reported a sharp quarterly earnings gain that surprised Wall Street.
* IBM slipped 1/2 to 51 1/4. The stock had rallied 2 3/4 points Tuesday after hitting 11-year lows the day before, beset by selling that has followed IBM’s acknowledgment that it would take further write-offs and might not be able to maintain its dividend at current levels.
* Gainers among the blue chips included AT&T;, up 1 1/4 to 51 5/8 and trading at new highs; Boeing, up 1 1/4 to 38 5/8; General Motors, up 1/2 to 33, and Procter & Gamble, up 3/8 to 55 1/8.
* National Medical Enterprises dropped 5/8 to 11 7/8. Profit for the fiscal second quarter ended Nov. 30 came to 32 cents a share, down from 41 cents a share a year earlier.
Overseas, London stocks ended on a new closing high with the Financial Times 100-share average ending the day 34.3 points higher at 2,842.0. In Frankfurt, the 30-share DAX average gained 7.99 points to close at 1,523.57. Tokyo shares ended firmer in thin trading, with the 225-share Nikkei average up 45.23 points to 17,690.67.
Credit
The yield on the Treasury’s key 30-year bond was 7.35%, up slightly from 7.34% late Tuesday. Its price, which falls when yields rise, was down 1/8 point, or $1.25 per $1,000 in face amount.
Prices rose slightly early in the day after the Commerce Department reported orders for durable goods fell 1.9% in November to a seasonally adjusted $122.9 billion, chiefly because of a drop in aircraft orders. That compared to an expected decline of 1%.
The department also said personal incomes rose 0.2% in November, compared to an expected rise of 0.3%. “The income numbers looked weak,” said David Resler, chief economist at Nomura Securities International, “but that’s because they were inflated last month by reimbursements due to Hurricane Andrew.”
Excluding special factors, incomes rose 0.8%, mostly because of higher wages and salaries. Resler added, however, that strong economic growth should not produce a downturn in bond prices, because inflation remains in check.
Despite the buoyant tone, however, the rally could not hold after the Treasury auction in the afternoon of $11.26 billion of five-year notes at 6.03%, down from 6.07% at the last auction on Nov. 24.
The federal funds rate, the interest on overnight loans between banks, was 6%, up from 2.938% late Tuesday.
Currency
The dollar advanced in a quiet, dull session, with the trading light as a result of vacations and the close of financial markets in Japan.
In New York, the dollar closed at 1.595 German marks and 123.85 Japanese yen, up from late Tuesday’s 1.590 marks and 123.75 yen. The British pound fell to $1.527 from $1.537 late Tuesday.
Market Roundup, D6
