NEW YORK >> Technology stocks advanced again today, positioning the Nasdaq composite index for a five-session winning streak, as the market again celebrated from Microsoft's appeals court win in its antitrust fight with the government. Markets roiled by
trading glitchesMarkets move higher, but how
high is tough to call after Nasdaq
trading suspendedStar-Bulletin wire services
However, technical glitches held up trading of Nasdaq stocks, prompting the exchange to extend its trading an hour to 5 p.m. Eastern time, and delayed the compilation of major market indexes. The stock tables in today's Star-Bulletin are compiled from information prior to the Nasdaq's 2:30 p.m. Eastern time trading halt.
Blue chips, meanwhile, gave back some of their gains made yesterday, when investors had a delayed positive response to the Federal Reserve's sixth interest rate cut of the year.
Soon after 4 p.m. Eastern, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 67.77 at 10,498.44. It was not known by press time when a final figure for the Dow or other indicators would be available.
The market's broader indicators were higher. The Nasdaq composite index, which hasn't had a down day this week, was up 43.85 at 2,169.31. Wall Street's broadest measure, the Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 2.29 to 1,223.91.
The Russell 2000, which measures the performance of smaller company stocks, index rose 8.30 to 511.29.
The Treasury's 10-year note fell 18/32 to 96 30/32, while its yield rose 8 basis points to 5.410. The 30-year bond fell 1 6/32 to 94 18/32, its yield rising 9 basis points to 5.758.
The Nasdaq extended trading after its SelectNet and Small Order Execution System for electronic system for trading among brokerages stopped working at about 2:30 p.m. Nasdaq trading resumed at 3:51 p.m., only to halt again at 4:12 p.m. While SelectNet Trading resumed again at 4:25 p.m., SOES trading won't resume today, Nasdaq said.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners nearly 2 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange, with 1,971 up, 1,131 down and 199 unchanged. Volume was 1.85 billion shares, compared with 1.30 billion on yesterday.
The NYSE Composite index rose 0.12 to 621.82 and the American Stock Exchange Composite Index rose 11.64 to 915.30.
The outages -- which followed a failure yesterday -- left market makers unable to trade over the Nasdaq systems, traders said.
"It is creating a horror show of a problem," said Michael Palazzi, head of Nasdaq trading at CIBC World Markets.
The Nasdaq has been plagued by technology problems in recent years. Nasdaq Chairman Frank Zarb has said that the stock market is investing in improving its technology to prevent outages.
A surge in trading was expected at the end of the day when annual changes in the Frank Russell Co.'s stock indexes take effect.
Some 70 percent of the 3,000 stocks in the Russell 2000 Index and the Russell 1000 Index trade on Nasdaq, said Diane Garnick, an equity derivatives strategist at Merrill Lynch & Co.
Investors who run funds that seek to mimic the performance of the Russell benchmarks will buy shares of the companies being added to the indexes and sell those being removed.
A failed software upgrade at the New York Stock Exchange three weeks ago caused trading at the world's biggest exchange to be halted for 85 minutes.
"We are experiencing an intermittent network outage that is affecting quotation quality," said Wayne Lee, a spokesman for Nasdaq. "Therefore we have suspended SOES and SelectNet. We are in the process of trying to resolve the issue."
Prior to the trading problems, on the last day of a dismal quarter, one that was marred by more than 600 profit warnings, analysts said the market is beginning to look ahead, helped most of the market to move higher Friday. With six interest rate cuts this year -- the latest delivered Wednesday -- investors believe business could indeed turn around in the second half of 2001.
Tech stocks continued to benefit from Microsoft. But the software maker retreated from its gains of yesterday, when a federal appeals court reversed a ruling ordering the company's breakup.