Stocks rebound in
wild ride on Wall St.

The Dow soars 124.72 while
the Nasdaq pares an early plunge
on the heels of a global sell-off

NEW YORK -- U.S. stocks regained some lost ground today in a strong attempt to rebound from yesterday's white-knuckle declines.

But the turnaround came too late to help European stocks, which closed lower, or Asian markets, which took heavy losses. Hong Kong led the Asia selloff as its main stock index fell more than 7 percent.

The Dow Jones industrial average, which plummeted almost 360 points yesterday, rose 124.72 to close at 11,122.65.

And while disappointing news from Amazon.com and BMC Software Inc. sent the Nasdaq composite index down as much as 166.82 in the morning, by the close the index had recovered much of those losses as investors went bargain-hunting. It ended today down 24.15 points at 3,877.54.

The Nasdaq suffered a record 264-point drop yesterday as investors took profits following an unprecedented 85 percent surge in the technology-heavy index in 1999.

The Standard & Poor's 500 rose 2.69 to 1,402.11 today.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 4-to-3 margin on the New York Stock Exchange, with 1,796 up, 1,336 down and 387 unchanged. NYSE volume totaled 1.07 billion shares vs. 989.86 million yesterday.

The New York Stock Exchange composite index rose 2.20 to 621.07; the American Stock Exchange index gained 9.23 to 858.88; and the Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 0.46 to 478.84.

The benchmark 30-year Treasury bond fell 1 6/32, or $11.87 per $1,000 security pushing its yield up 9 basis points to 6.63 percent. That's not far from the 28-month high of 6.65 percent reached in intraday trading earlier this week. Yields on two-year notes rose 7 basis points to 6.36 percent.

Interest rate jitters still gripped markets worldwide and investors appeared to take little comfort in a decision today by the European Central Bank to hold interest rates steady. There are widespread expectations that rates will rise in the United States and overseas in the coming months, squeezing corporate profits, cooling the economy and taking a toll on stock prices. In the latest confirmation that the U.S. economy is growing with vigor, keeping inflation fears afloat, the Commerce Department said today that American factory orders for manufactured goods rose 1.2 percent in November, the first gain since August, as companies producing electronic products enjoyed a surge in demand.

In Europe, major indexes fell 1.95 percent in London, 3.39 percent in Paris and 1.29 percent in Frankfurt, Germany. In Asia, traders staged a huge selloff today. Prices were hit hardest in Hong Kong, where the Hang Seng index finished with a loss of 1,226.10 points, or 7.2 percent, at 15,846.72. That represented only a slight recovery from an early slide that pushed the Hang Seng down by 8.1 percent. It was the second-worst point loss in history for Hong Kong, Asia's No. 2 market. The biggest point drop was the 1,438.31-point plunge of Oct. 28, 1997, at the height of the Asian financial crises.

"Euphoria in Hong Kong is ending," said Frank Gong, economist and strategist with the Bank of America. The Hang Seng had rung out 1999 with a record close before setting yet another one Monday, the first day of trading in 2000.

Blue chips on Asia's biggest market, the Tokyo Stock Exchange, bounced back from steep early losses but still finished with a 2.4 percent decline for the day.