Stocks Stay Steady, End Down Slightly

Stocks barely moved Thursday, edging lower as investors awaited Friday’s inflation report and interest rates flirted with another seven-month high in the bond market.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 23.79 points to 6,540.05, never straying more than 30 points in either direction from Wednesday’s close.

Most broad-market indicators posted slight losses, including the technology-rich Nasdaq Composite index, which lost 13.66 points to 1,235.77. Technology and financial stocks led the market lower for the second consecutive day.

After rebounding modestly for a few days from the sharp downturn of the past month, the stock market has been treading water for two sessions as investors await Friday’s reading on wholesale price levels and an impending flood of first-quarter earnings reports.

“In front of (today’s producer price index), the market has basically gotten itself to where it feels comfortable being,” said Charles White, portfolio manager at Avatar Associates.

There was little reaction to Thursday’s news that the number of first-time claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly shot up by 6,000 last week.

Even with the increase in new jobless claims, the tally remained below 320,000 for the ninth straight week--the longest such stretch in more than eight years.

As U.S. bond prices edged lower, the yield on the benchmark 30-year Treasury bond rose as high as 7.13% before settling near late Wednesday’s 7.10%. On Monday, the yield settled at 7.12%, its highest finish since before last fall’s market rally.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 6-to-5 margin on the New York Stock Exchange in moderate trading.

The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock list fell 2.26 points to 758.34, and the NYSE’s composite index fell 0.93 point to 399.36.

The dollar fell from Wednesday’s high after Japan’s Finance Ministry and U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin said they were concerned about the currency’s rapid rise.

The dollar rallied early Thursday to 127.10 yen in Tokyo, its highest level since August 1992, before Japanese government officials said the yen’s recent declines were too rapid and excessive.

Japanese Finance Minister Hiroshi Mitsuzuka was quoted as saying that recent yen moves were obviously excessive, which the market took as a warning that Japan would try to curb the dollar’s rise.

The dollar also was knocked lower after Rubin said for the first time that the U.S. shared Japan’s concern about the weak yen. The dollar settled in New York at 125.65 yen, down from 126.77 yen Wednesday.

Among Thursday’s highlights:

* Nearly half of the Dow’s loss came from Sears, Roebuck, which slid 3 5/8 to 47 1/4--or the equivalent of about 11 Dow points--amid news that the retailer plans to repay bankrupt customers who were pressured to pay off their Sears credit cards, affecting 1997 earnings.

Also sliding were DuPont, down 2 to 102 3/8 and Chevron, down 3/4 to 64 1/2.

Merck rose 2 1/8 to 83 5/8 to lead gainers among the Dow industrials.

* Nasdaq was weighed down by some heavy profit-taking on the recent rebound by Intel, which slid 5 points to 137 1/4. Dell Computer fell 3 1/8 to 74 1/4, and Microsoft fell 1 1/4 to 96 3/4.

Intel’s plunge affected other computer chip makers. Texas Instruments dropped 3 5/8 to 82 5/8, and Xilinx dropped 3 5/16 to 46 7/8.

* Paper issues rose, led by Georgia-Pacific, up 1 5/8 to 73 after reporting better-than-expected quarterly results.

International Paper rose 5/8 to 41, Weyerhaeuser gained 1/4 to 44 7/8 and Champion International increased 1/2 to 43 3/4.

* Banks, whose profits tend to do best when borrowing costs are low, were among the biggest losers. Citicorp fell 2 3/4 to 110 1/8, Chase Manhattan dropped 1 3/8 to 94 1/8, BankAmerica was off 7/8 at 105 5/8 and First Union slid 3/4 to 81 7/8.

Market Roundup, D6