NEW YORK -- A late burst of bargain-hunting halted a sharp decline for the second straight session as Wall Street seesawed into the conclusion of a volatile, bruising week. Dow loses 42
The Dow Jones industrial finished 41.97 points lower at 7,640.25 after charging back over the final half hour from a 186-point slide. The small drop left the Dow almost exactly 1,700 points, or about 18 percent, below the July 17 record of 9,337.97. For the week, the Dow ended down 411.43 and was exactly 268 points, or 3.39 percent, below this year's starting point.
Decliners barely beat advancers today on the New York Stock Exchange, with 1,489 up, 1.528 down and 501 unchanged. NYSE volume totaled 777.63 million shares, down from 874.48 million yesterday, but bringing the week's total to a record 4.677 billion, blowing past the previous mark of 4.016 billion was set last October.
The Standard & Poor's 500 fell 8.37 to 973.89, and the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index fell 5.34 to 1,566.52. The NYSE composite index fell 3.58 to 486.31, and the American Stock Exchange composite index rose 4.01 to 602.71. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 0.78 to 347.07.
The 30-year Treasury bond rose 7/32, or $2.19 per $1,000 bond, to 103 6/32, pushing its yield down 1 basis point to 5.29 percent.
While it was the third straight losing session for stocks, today's finish represented a sharp improvement from earlier in the week. The Dow plunged 512 points on Monday and fell as low as 7,400 on Tuesday before a turnaround left it with a gain of 288 for that day. The blue-chip barometer pulled back on Wednesday and yesterday, losing a combined 145 points.