Dow up 86
as Asia jitters ease

NEW YORK - Blue-chip shares recouped some losses, but many smaller stocks were lower today despite some hints of calm in the latest outbreak of global financial jitters.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 86.44 points to close at 7,487.76 after swinging from an early 87-point gain to a 51-point loss.

Decliners outnumbered advancers by a narrow margin on the New York Stock Exchange, with 1,440 up, 1,512 down and 492 unchanged. NYSE volume totaled 642.34 million shares vs. 584.63 million yesterday.

The Standard & Poor's 500-stock list rose 10.69 to 916.65, and the NYSE composite index rose 3.76 to 480.69. The Nasdaq composite index rose 16.02 to 1,557.74, snapping a five-session losing streak that had trimmed the technology-laden measure by nearly 6 percent.

The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies slipped 0.05 to 423.39, and the small-company dominated American Stock Exchange composite index fell 1.18 to 666.86.

Although share prices fell sharply today in the Philippines and Singapore, Japanese stocks managed to rally back from an early 1.6 percent drop and finish just a shade lower. In Hong Kong, meanwhile, stocks rose 1.2 percent.

The Labor Department reported that workplace productivity - a pivotal counterbalance to rising production costs and inflation - shot up at an annual rate of 4.5 percent from July to September, the biggest quarterly improvement in more than five years.

The report also said unit labor costs fell at a 0.3 percent rate.