Stock Market Ends Big Year On Upbeat Note

It was a humdrum end to a historic year.

Stocks gained Friday in moderate trading, helped by higher bond prices and renewed optimism over the negotiations in Washington aimed at balancing the federal budget.

The same hopes for continued moderate economic growth with low inflation and interest rates that have strengthened stocks all year were present Friday.

The biggest beneficiaries on the last day of trading in 1995 were the stocks of cyclical companies like metal and paper producers, transportation stocks and others that ebb and flow with the economy.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 21.32 points to close the year at 5,117.12.

The index of 30 of the best known names in corporate America gained 1,262.68 points in 1995, a healthy 33.45 percent, compared with a 2.1 percent gain in 1994.

Measured in pure dollars, the paper value of all the shares sold on the New York and American stock exchanges and the Nasdaq Stock market rose $1.5 trillion in 1995 to $6.06 trillion.

Advancing issues outnumbered declines Friday by more than 9 to 5 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Big Board volume totaled a moderate 319.71 million shares as of 4 p.m., vs. 288.48 million in the previous session.

Some of the stocks that moved substantially or traded heavily Friday:

NYSE

UAL Corp., up 3-3/4 to 178-1/2.

Delta Airlines, up 1-1/2 to 73-5/8.

Merrill Lynch raised its long-term rating on the parent of United Airlines to “buy” from “above average.” Other airlines benefited.

Barnes & Noble Inc., down 3-3/8 to 29.

PaineWebber Inc. reversed its Thursday upgrade, lowering the rating of the New York-based book store chain to neutral from buy. Heavy snow before Christmas hurt sales in the Northeast, the brokerage said.

Dole Food, up 1-3/4 to 35.

The fruit and vegetable company based in Westlake Village, Calif., said it restated its third-quarter loss from discontinued real estate and resort businesses downward to $1.76 per share from $1.99 per share.

NASDAQ

Alliance Semiconductor Corp., down 1-3/4 to 11-5/8.

Alliance, a San Jose, Calif.-based maker of computer memory chips, said manufacturing problems, price cuts and weak demand will result in a significant reduction in fourth-quarter profits compared to the previous quarter.

Agrium Inc., up 1-1/8 to 45.

The Calgary, Alberta, fertilizer maker said it completed a $175 million private debt placement with U.S. institutional investors.

Echostar Communications Corp., up 1/4 to 24-1/4.

The provider of direct-broadcast satellite television services to homes hopes to be the lowest cost provider of such services when beginning sales in March, the New York Times reported.

AMEX

Ivax Corp., up 3/4 to 28-1/2.

The Miami-based maker and distributor of generic drugs got FDA approval to make the asthma inhaler albuterol, a generic version of Glaxo Wellcome PLC’s popular Ventolin.