Star-Bulletin news services
Stocks gain ground
on 9/11 anniversary
NEW YORK >> Stocks rose for the first time in three sessions yesterday although the market's course was choppy as investors weighed upbeat earnings from Adobe Systems Inc. against a brokerage downgrade of IBM Corp. Trading was light and Wall Street subdued on the second anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
"It is never going to go away. It is always going to be in the back of our minds," said Brian Pears, head equity trader at Victory Capital Management in Cleveland, adding that the anniversary is more of an emotional issue on Wall Street, rather than a factor in trading.
The anniversary was observed at the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq Stock Market and the American Stock Exchange by moments of silence in the morning, marking the times when airplanes struck the two World Trade Center towers and when each tower collapsed.
Investors concerns about terrorism were renewed Wednesday, when Arabic satellite channel Al-Jazeera aired a videotape purportedly of Osama bin Laden.
"Today, we have a little bit of a patriotic rally," said Michael Murphy, head trader at Wachovia Securities in Baltimore.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 39.30, or 0.4 percent, to 9,459.76, having shed 165.83 in the previous two sessions.
The broader market was also higher. The Nasdaq composite index rose 22.28, or 1.2 percent, to 1,846.09, following a two-day loss of 64.81. On Wednesday, the Nasdaq suffered its worst day in nearly two months, dropping 49.62.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index advanced 5.50, or 0.5 percent, to 1,016.42, having lost 20.72 in the previous two sessions.
The NYSE composite index rose 26.28, or 0.5 percent, to 5,734.51. The American Stock Exchange composite index fell 1.18, or 0.1 percent, to 987.49.
The two-year Treasury note fell 432 to 100 1932, with its yield rising to 1.69 percent. the 10-year note lost 1 2/32 to 99 1432, with its yield increasing to 4.32 percent.
The market managed to advance despite discouraging news from the Labor Department, which said new claims for unemployment insurance filed last week increased by a seasonally adjusted 3,000 to 422,000, a two-month high.
Adobe climbed $3.07 to $39.46 after reporting late Wednesday that fiscal third-quarter profits beat Wall Street's estimate by 2 cents a share. Yesterday, Merrill Lynch & Co. raised its rating on the software maker to "buy" from "neutral," while JMP Securities upgraded it to "market outperform" from "market perform."
International Business Machines advanced 8 cents to $87.92 after losing as much as $1.44 earlier when Smith Barney downgraded it to "underperform" from "in-line," saying the stock is overvalued.
STOCK QUOTES/CHARTS/DATA
