Anxious investors
await Iraq election

NEW YORK » Stocks slumped in listless trading yesterday amid concerns about the upcoming Iraqi election and rising oil prices. The major indexes closed at their lowest levels of the year.

Market watchers were growing increasingly concerned about January's slide in stocks, which some analysts blamed on Wall Street's strong fourth quarter performance. A car bomb attack in Baghdad, targeting the prime minister's party headquarters, did little to ease the anxiety of investors ahead of Iraq's election Sunday. Oil prices declined early in the day, but settled up 28 cents at $48.81 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

"In general, the market is waiting for the elections in Iraq," said Barry Berman, head trader for Robert W. Baird & Co. in Milwaukee. "And oil prices have been on the move up for the past week."

The Dow Jones industrials seesawed in and out of positive range through much of the day, closing down 24.38, or 0.23 percent, at 10,368.61.

Broader stock indicators also sagged. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 4.12, or 0.35 percent, to 1,163.75. The Nasdaq composite index dropped 25.57, or 1.26 percent, to 2,008.70.

Investors in the tech-heavy Nasdaq, which is down 7.66 percent year-to-date, may have been unsettled when chipmaking giant Infineon Technologies AG warned that second-quarter earnings could slow. The Munich, Germany-based company reported that first-quarter net profits quadrupled thanks to one-time license income.

The Infineon report "is probably part" of the Nasdaq's malaise, said John Caldwell, chief investment strategist for McDonald Financial Group, part of Cleveland-based KeyCorp. But, he added, the telecommunications sector has also been a problem, with Motorola coming in last week with a cautious outlook and Nokia earnings still awaited.

Investors also continued to eye quarterly earnings results. This week's calendar of releases includes 10 of the 30 Dow industrials, along with more than 150 other major companies.

Among yesterday's gainers, Dow component American Express Co. rose 67 cents to $52.60 after reporting fourth-quarter earnings of $896 million, or 71 cents a share -- a penny ahead of analysts' estimates. Microsoft Corp., another Dow component, gained 2 cents to $25.67 after the Redmond, Wash., software company announced in Belgium that it will not appeal an interim European Union ruling forcing it to strip Media Player from its Windows platform.