NEW YORK -- Stocks turned mostly higher today, setting more records and overcoming a mild spurt of profit-taking for the second straight day. Dow drops 30.6
The Dow Jones industrial average slipped 30.64 points to close at 8,129.71, but most market measures finished higher, with the technology-heavy Nasdaq market posting a sizable gain and the Standard & Poor's 500 closing at a record for the third straight day.
Advancers led decliners today by a 5-to-4 margin on the New York Stock Exchange, with 1,612 up, 1,297 down and 537 unchanged. NYSE volume was 694.61 million shares vs. 692.03 million yesterday.
The Standard & Poor's 500 rose 0.91 to a record 1,006.90. The NYSE composite index also closed at a new high for the third straight day, rising 0.58 to 523.58, and the Nasdaq composite index gained 14.10 to 1,680.44. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies climbed 4.04 to 441.84, and the small-company dominated American Stock Exchange composite index rose 3.39 to 674.47.
The price of the Treasury's main 30-year bond was off 1/32 point, or 31 cents per $1,000 in face value, by late afternoon, while its yield was at 5.86 percent, unchanged from late yesterday.
The Dow, which slid as much as 70 points early in the day, pulled back after a six-session gain of 450 points, or 6 percent, that had put the blue-chip barometer within 100 points of its record close of 8,259.31, set Aug. 6.
Technology shares led the turnaround, bolstered by late yesterday's healthy profit reports by Cisco Systems Inc., the bellwether of the computer-networking sector, and Peoplesoft Inc., a leading business software company.