Dow Gains in Anxious Week
Blue-chip stocks finished modestly higher Friday, helped by gains in industrial and energy shares, after a strong Midwest manufacturing report offset tepid news on third-quarter economic growth.
The outlook for next week -- already uncertain because of Tuesday’s election -- was further clouded when Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, injecting himself into the presidential campaign, appeared in a new videotape, saying that “there are still reasons to repeat what happened” in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Although the Bin Laden tape was broadcast too late in the day to affect Wall Street, it capped a roller-coaster week.
The Dow Jones industrial average hit a low for the year Monday, then rose sharply for two days, helped by a dramatic drop in oil prices.
On Friday, the Dow ended up 22.93 points, or 0.2%, at 10,027.47. It rose 2.8% for the week.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 2.76 points, or 0.2%, to close at 1,130.20 on Friday and was up 3.1% for the week.
The technology-dominated Nasdaq index slipped 0.75 point, or 0.04%, to 1,974.99. For the week, it jumped 3.1%.
For the month, the Dow lost 0.5%, while the S&P; added 1.4% and Nasdaq surged 4.1%.
Investors were disappointed by the government’s report on third-quarter gross domestic product. The 3.7% growth rate in GDP was less than the 4.3% increase expected and was hurt in part by soaring oil prices.
But a jump this month in the National Assn. of Purchasing Management’s Chicago-area business index, a key barometer of manufacturing activity, raised optimism about fourth-quarter economic growth.
Oil prices, which tumbled Wednesday and Thursday, headed up again Friday. A barrel of crude rose 84 cents to $51.76 in New York trading.
On Wall Street, many investors were unwilling to take large positions before the election, analysts said. “There’s a lot of people just waiting to see what happens,” said Todd Leone, a trader at SG Cowen Securities.
In other market highlights:
* The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note slipped to 4.02% from 4.05% on Thursday. Traders said bond investors were enthused by the GDP report and by an inflation index in the report. The personal consumption expenditures inflation gauge rose at a 1.1% annual rate from the previous quarter, and the “core” rate, which excludes food and energy, rose 0.7%, the slowest in 40 years.
* The rise in crude prices helped stocks of energy companies rebound from Thursday’s decline. Exxon Mobil gained 61 cents to $49.22, ConocoPhillips added $1.33 to $84.31 and Occidental Petroleum picked up 92 cents to $55.83.
* Industrial issues helped by the Chicago manufacturing report included Caterpillar, up $1.01 to $80.54, and steel maker Nucor, up $1.23 to $42.23.
* Aon, the No. 2 insurance brokerage, sank 96 cents to $20.41. Third-quarter earnings rose to 36 cents a share, missing analysts’ estimates. Profit included fees that Aon has eliminated under pressure from New York Atty. Gen. Eliot Spitzer, who is investigating the firm.
* Avon Products tumbled $3.66 to $39.55. The company said revenue in the U.S. dropped 1% in the third quarter and would fall about 3% this quarter because of weak demand for color cosmetics.
* Halliburton gained 79 cents to $37.04 despite reports that the FBI had launched a probe into whether the U.S. government improperly awarded no-bid contracts to the company for services in Iraq.
