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NEW YORK -- U.S. stocks fell on the last trading day of 2000, giving the Nasdaq composite index the biggest drop for a major U.S. stock benchmark in almost seven decades. Stocks end 2000
with a dropStar-Bulletin news services
The Nasdaq lost 87.24, or 3.4 percent, to 2,470.52 and ended the year down 39 percent. That's the biggest decline in the index's 29-year history and the largest for one of the three major indexes since the S&P dropped 47 percent in 1931, during the Great Depression. The Standard & Poor's 500 index lost 13.94, or 1 percent, to 1,320.43 and the Dow Jones industrial average declined 81.91, or 0.75 percent, to 10,786.85. For the year, the S&P 500 dropped 9.8 percent -- its biggest decline since 1977 -- and the Dow average fell 6.2 percent, its worst since 1981.
Bond prices were mostly higher today, wnding their best year since 1995. The price of the benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose 1/8 point, or $1.25 per $1,000 in face value. Its yield, which moves in the opposite direction, fell to 5.10 percent compared with 5.12 percent late yesterday. The 30-year Treasury bond fell 9/32 point to yield 5.46 percent, up from 5.44 percent a day earlier.
Cisco Systems Inc., Qualcomm Inc. and Microsoft Corp. led today's decline as investors sold some of the stocks that tumbled in 2000 so they don't have to show them in year-end reports to clients. "Everybody still owns these stocks and they're trying to spread their risk a little more broadly," said Ned Riley, chief investment strategist at State Street Global Advisers in Boston, which manages $730 billion. At the end of the year, investors "would prefer to show a number of stocks that were winners," he said.
Cisco Systems, the largest maker of networking equipment, lost $1.31 to $38.25 and now has fallen 52 percent from its March peak. Microsoft, the No. 1 software maker, dropped $1.06 to $43.50, giving it a loss of 63 percent in 2000.
Qualcomm, which develops cell phone technology, fell $7.19 to $82.19, giving it a decline of 63 percent in 2000. The stock was the S&P 500's best performer in 1999, soaring 27-fold.