Dow rises 85; Intel beats expectations
NEW YORK - Stocks rose today, led by the battered technology sector, after several Asian markets began to rebound from a series of sharp slides over the past week.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 84.95 points to about 7,732.13, the blue-chip barometer's best performance in two weeks and trimming January's loss back toward 2 percent.
Broader indexes also posted sizable gains, with the rally accelerating just before the closing bell and the day's main event - a profit report from Intel Corp. that analysts will scour for evidence of how the Asian economic crisis has affected the technology sector.
Intel, considered a proxy for the semiconductor group and the computer industry as a whole, rose in advance of the report on its final three months of 1997. After the closing bell, Intel reported earnings of 98 cents a share, well above analysts expectations of about 90 cents.
Advancers beat decliners by a 5-to-2 margin on the New York Stock Exchange, with 2,134 up, 865 down and 464 unchanged. NYSE volume was 645.68 million shares vs. 682.90 million yesterday.
The Standard & Poor's 500-stock list rose 12.92 to 952.13, and the NYSE composite index climbed 6.14 to 497.75. The Nasdaq composite index rose 34.05 to 1,541.63, and the American Stock Exchange composite index rose 9.47 to 655.88. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies gained 7.56 to 418.44.
The price of the Treasury's main 30-year bond was down 17/32 point, or $5.31 per $1,000 in face value, by late afternoon, while its yield rose to 5.72 percent from 5.69 percent late yesterday. Prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Buoyed by yesterday's recovery on Wall Street, battered stock markets rebounded across Asia today, led by Indonesia, where stocks rose 9.1 percent after President Suharto pledged to adopt tough reforms needed for that nation's economic recovery.
Singapore's market jumped 8 percent after seven days of steep losses and Malaysia's climbed 5.5 percent. In Hong Kong, stocks rose 7.4 percent today after tumbling to a three-year low on Monday.
On other foreign markets, Tokyo's Nikkei stock average rose 0.6 percent, Frankfurt's DAX index rose 1.8 percent and London's FT-SE 100 rose 0.3 percent.
Amid all the continuing fixation with Asia and company profits, there was little reaction to a report showing that U.S. consumer prices edged just 0.1 percent higher in December. The small increase held inflation for all of 1997 to only 1.7 percent - about half the 3.3 percent increase of 1996 and the best performance in 11 years.