FINANCIAL MARKETS : Stocks Make Small Gains, Yields Ease in Light Trading
U.S. stocks mostly tiptoed higher Friday, taking some indexes further into record territory, as bond yields slipped before the long holiday weekend.
The Dow Jones industrial average inched up 0.74 point to 5,762.86, bringing the full-week gain to 75.36 points. The Dow hit a record 5,778.00 on Wednesday.
Broad-market measures were mostly higher Friday, with the Standard & Poor’s 500 index adding 2.51 points to a record 678.51. Winners topped losers on the Big Board and on Nasdaq, but trading was predictably slow.
“Everybody’s already on vacation and we’re taking a break,” said John Cleland, investment strategist at Security Benefit Group in Topeka, Kan.
Bond yields closed slightly lower after the government reported weakness in April factory orders. The 30-year Treasury bond yield dipped to 6.83% from 6.85% Thursday. The yield was also 6.83% a week ago.
Meanwhile, the dollar was a big winner. It surged to 107.80 Japanese yen in New York, up from 106.93 Thursday, after Eisuke Sakakibara, head of the Japanese Finance Ministry’s international finance bureau, said market expectations that the Bank of Japan may raise interest rates soon have “greatly diminished.”
The only major down note on Wall Street was a decline in some of the technology stocks that have been rocketing in recent weeks, as profit-takers apparently decided it was time to act.
Weakness in those issues helped shave 0.85 point off the Nasdaq composite index, to 1,247.80.
High-flying Nasdaq issues that got whacked included SyQuest, which plunged 7 to 10 7/8 after an executive of the maker of computer storage devices supposedly said a rumored takeover of the company was less likely. The firm later denied the report.
Iomega, another storage-device firm that has been one of the market’s hottest stocks lately, dove 6 11/16 to 44 9/16. Other tech issues plunging included PairGain Technologies, off 5 3/4 to 97; Presstek, down 13 3/4 to 174 3/4; and Optical Cable, which lost 18 to 92.
Among Southland firms, discount brokerage JB Oxford was unchanged at 3 1/4. A Luxembourg investment company, Arabella, said it bought a 5.2% stake in Oxford for investment purposes.
Market Roundup, D4
