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NEW YORK -- Investors regained some of their confidence in high-tech stocks bidding the sector higher today while lessening their reliance on safer blue chips. Dow drops 108
Associated Press
The Dow Jones industrial average closed down 107.91, or 1 percent, at 10,795.41. The Nasdaq composite index rose 63.69, or 2.6 percent, to 2,491.41. But the Standard & Poor's 500 index, which has a smaller concentration of tech issues than the Nasdaq, fell 2.89 to 1,315.91. Decliners beat advancers on the New York Stock Exchange, with 1,762 down, 1,313 up and 204 unchanged. NYSE volume was 1.11 billion up from 1.06 billion yesterday. The NYSE composite index fell 5.69 to 652.03; the American Stock Exchange composite index rose 1.69 to 936.01; and the Russell 2000 index inched up 0.92 to 503.49.
The 10-year Treasury note's price was down 1/2 point, or $5 cents per $1,000 in face value; its yield rose to 5.14 percent from 5.06 percent late yesterday. The 30-year bonds fell 15/32 point and yielded 5.44 percent, up from 5.41 late yesterday.
Analysts said investors were still unsettled by congressional testimony Tuesday from Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who indicated interest rate cuts will be less aggressive than investors wanted. But one potentially positive sign in today's dealings was the fact that blue chips slipped while tech stocks advanced. Today's movement could indicate that investors are more comfortable committing to riskier high-tech issues, believing that the economy will improve sooner rather than later.
"The Nasdaq is trying to make a bottom, testing the lows of Jan. 2," the first day of trading this year, said Peter Canelo, strategist at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. However, it's also possible investors won't continue for long to favor tech over safer, so-called defensive sectors like drug stocks.