NEW YORK -- The stock market ended a sloppy, thin session on a down note today, with the Dow Jones industrials losing a fight to extend a two-day rally that had repaired about a third of the damage suffered in a monthlong slide from record highs. Dow off 21.37
The Dow was down 21.37 points to 8,693.28 at the close after bouncing between negative and positive territory all day. The Dow had gained 290 points on Monday and yesterday after sliding to 8,425 last week -- a 900-point drop from the record of 9,337.97 set just four weeks earlier on July 17.
The Standard & Poor's 500 fell 3.14 to 1,098.06, and the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index fell 12.43 to 1,842.69.
Decliners outnumbered advancers by a 7-to-5 margin on the New York Stock Exchange, with 1,249 up, 1,783 down and 532 unchanged. NYSE volume totaled 630.86 million shares vs. 682.81 million yesterday. The NYSE composite index fell 1.98 to 550.05, and the American Stock Exchange composite index 4.43 to 665.59.
The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 5.45 to 405.84.
The benchmark 30-year Treasury bond fell 2/32, or 63 cents per $1,000 bond, to yield 5.56 percent, up 1 basis point.
Stocks started to climb Monday as President Clinton began his testimony in the Monica Lewinsky case. But there were too many negative factors at work to extend that 290-point rally, said Prudential Securities analyst Larry Wachtel. "You fell 1,000, (then) rallied 300 in an oversold technical rally. And this is not exactly a happy news background, given the president's wobblies, Asia's continuing to crater, no solutions in Japan, and earnings disappointments."