Dow off 90
in volatile session

NEW YORK -- The Dow Jones industrial average plunged 269 points in morning trading today but recovered most of its losses and the Nasdaq stock market finished with a gain in a strong comeback from a scary drop brought on by persistent Asian worries.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 90.21 to close at 7,756.29 -- its lowest level in about a month.

Some analysts described the Dow's third straight drop as a knee-jerk reaction to a 5 percent drop in Tokyo market's decline, but investors continued selling in morning trading. Reaction to the Tokyo drop drove markets downward in Asia, then Europe and finally Wall Street.

In the NYSE's second-busiest day ever, volume was 782.03 million shares vs. 614.91 million yesterday. Decliners led losers by a 2-to-1 margin on the New York Stock Exchange, with 1,994 up, 1,004 down and 458 unchanged.

Twenty-three of the 30 Dow industrial stocks were down, with AT&T Corp. the second biggest gainer, up $2.12-1/2 at $61.25 after announcing a cost-cutting plan to freeze hiring and halt its effort to expand into local telephone service. IBM was the leading Dow stock, rising $2 to $102.

The Standard & Poor's 500-stock list fell 8.52 to 946.78, the NYSE composite index dropped 4.30 to 497.39 and the American Stock Exchange composite index fell 4.19 to 660.68.

But the Nasdaq composite index rose 1.42 to 1,524.61.

"This doesn't have any smell of a trend," said Steven Adler, president of the ASM Fund, a Tampa, Fla.-based mutual fund indexed to the Dow industrials. "It's just short-term volatility."

Prices fell sharply today on the Tokyo Stock Exchange as investors were jolted by another major corporate bankruptcy. The 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average sank 846.75 points, or 5.24 percent, to 15,314.89 points, the index's lowest level since Nov. 14 and its third-largest single day point decline of the year. The plunge followed a 2.29 percent decline on Thursday.

Prices plunged from the start in Tokyo in reaction to the failure of Toshoku Ltd., a major Japanese food trading company. Toshoku announced Thursday that it had filed for protection from creditors after piling up debts totaling $5.04 billion, citing tighter lending policies among Japan's troubled banks.

Overseas, Tokyo's Nikkei stock average fell 5.2 percent, Frankfurt's DAX index dropped 2.0 percent and London's FT-SE 100 fell 2.9 percent.

Trading on Wall Street intensified with the expiration of futures and options contracts on stocks and stock indexes -- a quarterly event known as "triple witching."