NEW YORK -- The Dow Jones industrial average closed more than 100 points lower today as steep drops on overseas markets left Wall Street jittery. Dow off 125
as selling resumesWall Street's drop
follows a worldwide selloffThe Dow fell almost 100 points in the first few minutes of trading, climbed back and was up at midday before sliding back to finish with a loss of 125.00 points, or 1.7 percent, at 7,381.67.
The Nasdaq Stock Market lost 2 percent, led by drops among leading technology companies.
International Business Machines was one of the Dow's biggest losers. Dell Computer and chipmaker Intel were both off sharply as the most actively traded Nasdaq issues. Worries about the Asian economy have hurt technology stocks particularly hard because they have relied on the region for much of their growth.
New York Stock Exchange was volume was strong today, but trailed yesterday's, which was the second busiest day ever after Tuesday's blistering pace.
Decliners led advancers by a 8-to-3 margin on the New York Stock Exchange, with 801 up, 2,176 and 449 unchanged. NYSE volume was 707.82 million shares vs. 770.56 million yesterday.
The Standard & Poor's 500-stock list was down 15.47 to 903.69, and the NYSE composite index was off 7.10 to 475.83. The Nasdaq composite was down 32.70 to 1,570.05, and the American Stock Exchange composite index was down 5.57 to 670.84.
Meanwhile, Treasury bond prices were higher. The price of the Treasury's main 30-year bond was up 24/32 point, or $7.50 per $1,000 in face value, by late afternoon, while its yield fell to 6.15 percent from 6.19 percent late yesterday. Prices and yields move in opposite directions.
The Dow, which gained 8 points yesterday, had shown signs of steadying after Tuesday's 337-point moonshot, which followed the 554-point plunge the day before. But analysts cautioned that the stock market is still at risk of more turbulence.
"We are seeing some choppy trading, which is normal after the hammering that the market saw this week," Anthony O'Bryan, a market analyst at A.G. Edwards & Sons in St. Louis, said today.
World markets slid this morning because of frets about Wall Street's meager gains and a negative assessment of Hong Kong banks. The blue-chip index closed 3.7 percent lower in Hong Kong, while Tokyo stocks dropped 2.92 percent. Stock prices in London fell 1.4 percent.
"We've gone up a little too far too fast, given the damage that was created. When you have a decline of the magnitude we had, it takes time to recover," said Tony Dwyer, chief equity strategist at Ladenburg Thalmann & Co. "The result is that volatility will be with us for a while, and volatility breeds uncertainty."
Not that yesterday lacked volatility. The Dow gained as much as 123 points in the morning, then slipped to a deficit of 42 points in the afternoon before recovering. And if not for Tuesday's record volume of 2.83 billion shares traded on all U.S. markets, Wednesday's 1.86 billion-share volume would have been the busiest day in history.
Wall Street got some encouraging words from Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who offered assurances that the market's rocky performance could actually help the U.S. economy. Greenspan suggested that the selloff returned market valuations to more reasonable levels and could extend this country's 61/2-year economic expansion by slowing it to a more sustainable pace.
Greenspan's comments, coupled with a weak report on factory orders released Tuesday morning, reinforced hopes that the Fed won't raise interest rates soon to forcibly slow the economy as protection against inflation.
That may turn out to be good news for small investors, credited with staying calm while institutions and money managers sold.
"I feel with a big burp like we had, you've got to say 'hold on,'" said William Green, a retired executive from Libby Glass of Toledo, Ohio. "The way the big swings are, it could come back in a few days."