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Wednesday, Aug. 19, 1998
Market rebound continues
Dow rises 139 points, eats away at losses
By BRUCE MEYERSON
Associated PressNEW YORK -- The stock market rebound picked up steam Tuesday, extending the Dow's recovery to 400 points from the bottom of the selloff a week earlier.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 139.80 to 8,714.65, nearly duplicating Monday's 150-point gain and erasing another chunk of a 1,000-point, monthlong plunge from the July 17 record of 9,337.97.
Broad-market indicators also extended a rally that took hold Monday afternoon as President Clinton began his long-awaited testimony in the Monica Lewinsky case.
Analysts, however, asserted that the market was ripe for a bounce with or without the latest developments in Washington.
``The market fell about 1,000 points in less than four weeks,'' said Rao Chalasani, chief investment strategist at Everen Securities in Chicago. ``I don't think the market went down just because Clinton was going to testify and I don't think it's going up because he's almost out of the woods.''
While Clinton's grand jury appearance and subsequent national address don't mark an official conclusion to independent counsel Kenneth Starr's investigation, investors hope that Monday's events mean there's an end in sight for one of the many worries dogging the market.
The leading concern on that list, however, remains company profits, although there were also some encouraging developments on that front on Tuesday.
Home Depot rose 2 to 44 13/16 after topping Wall Street forecasts with a 30 percent improvement in profits for its second quarter ended Aug. 2. The strong showing helped boost Sears Roebuck, which rose 3 11/16 to 52 and three fourths as one of the Dow's biggest gainers.
Hewlett-Packard, one of several major companies that rattled the market last month with profit warnings, topped Wall Street's deflated forecasts with its quarterly report after Monday's close. Notably, Dell Computer also beat expectations with its latest results, which were released after Tuesday's close.
H-P's shares rose 1 and three fourths to 57 to help lift the Dow with IBM, up 3 and three fourths to 128. Dell fell 1 to 109 9/16 after a late pullback, but other leading Nasdaq technology names posted sharp gains for a second day: Intel rose 1 to 91 7/16, Microsoft rose 3 15/16 to 111 and a fourth, and Cisco Systems rose 2 1/16 to 100 3/16.
The Standard & Poor's 500 rose 17.53 to 1,101.20, and the Nasdaq composite index rose 37.08 to 1,855.12.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 2-to-1 margin on the New York Stock Exchange, where composite volume totaled 828.97 million shares, up from 707.43 million on Friday.
The NYSE composite index rose 8.04 to 552.03, and the American Stock Exchange composite index rose 6.75 to 670.02. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 7.33 to 411.29.
Overseas, Tokyo's Nikkei stock average rose 1.8 percent, Frankfurt's DAX index rose 2.8 percent and London's FT-SE 100 rose 3.3 percent with its biggest point gain ever.
Meanwhile, with financial crises in Asia and Russia continuing to weigh heavily on the global and domestic economies, there was little attention paid to a Federal Reserve meeting on Tuesday that ended with no change in the central bank's interest rates.
Although inflationary pressures remain a concern, few analysts expected the Fed to slow the economy with higher interest rates, a move that would draw more investment capital away from troubled markets overseas.
Notably, there were two more reports Tuesday reinforcing arguments that the Asian crisis is helping do the Fed's work by slowing the pace of domestic business activity.
The Commerce Department reported that the nation's trade deficit narrowed slightly in June to $14.2 billion, but remains at a record level for the year as American farmers and manufacturers suffer from a plunge in exports to Asia.
The Labor Department reported Tuesday that inflation is still not showing up at the consumer level, with prices edging up just 0.2 percent in July. So far this year, consumer inflation is rising just 1.5 percent, even better than last year's 11-year low of 1.7 percent.Post your comments about local news eventsFront Page || Main Index || News || Business || Texas || South Texas Outdoors || Birdwatching || Sports || Entertainment || Selena || Education || South Texas Attractions || World Wide Web