NEW YORK -- Blue-chip stocks rallied in the last hour of trading today, nearly erasing a full day's losses, but were still in negative territory at the end of the session. Dow off 19.82
The Dow Jones industrial average, paring its losses at the close as President Clinton was about to issue another apology in the Monica Lewinsky case, was down 19.82 at 8,821.76. It got as low as 8,730.10, down 111 points.
The Standard & Poor's 500 rose 1.44 to 1,166.46, and the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index rose 13.35 to 2,029.31
Decliners outnumbered advancers by a 3-to-2 margin on the New York Stock Exchange, with 1,219 up, 1,831 down and 511 unchanged.
NYSE volume totaled 681.37 million shares vs. 746.47 million yesterday.
The NYSE composite index fell 1.26 to 564.82, and the American Stock Exchange composite index fell 4.40 to 657.76. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies declined 1.13 to 395.37.
The 30-year Treasury bond fell 1 4/32 to 103 17/32, with the yield rising to 5.02 percent.
Helping lead the Dow lower was Coca-Cola Co., which fell $3.121/2 to $62.94 after announcing it would fall short of Wall Street earnings estimates for the fourth quarter.
The Dow's slide occurred today despite a positive report from the Commerce Department that showed shoppers opened the holiday season by spending freely at department stores and auto showrooms in November, pushing sales up by a strong 0.6 percent.
Software maker Oracle Corp. bucked the negative earnings trend, surprising analysts by beating Wall Street estimates by 4 cents a share in its earnings report released late yesterday.