At the close of a highly volatile day on Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 1.16 to 6,304.87. The Dow fell more than 50 points early in the day, erased those gains by late morning and then swung widely throughout the rest of the session.
"The market's struggling right now," said David Shulman, Salomon Inc.'s market strategist, "The volatility's been so extreme lately" prematurely.
Bonds were rising, with the long bond up 23/32 point, and that helped pull blue-chip stocks out of the ditch. But Hugh Johnson, First Albany Corp's chief investment officer, said, "I would have expected a much better performance from stocks given the strength of bonds today."
Declining issues outnumbered advancers by an 11-to-8 margin on the New York Stock Exchange, with 1,053 up, 1,449 down and 809 unchanged. NYSE volume totaled 454.46 million shares, vs. 492.92 million yesterday.
The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index fell 0.66 to 728.64, and the NYSE's composite index fell 0.22 to 384.07.
The Nasdaq composite index fell 13.41 to 1,284.92, and the American Stock Exchange's market value index fell 3.05 to 576.06.
The Dow opened lower in continuation of yesterday's aggressive sell-off, which pushed the blue-chip index down more than 98 points.