Stock Market Unable To Sustain Strong Start

Stocks gave up a strong lead late Friday, leaving blue chip issues only marginally higher. The broader market was mostly lower.

The Dow Jones industrial average ended up 1.44 at 4,789.08, after giving up nearly all of a 29-point gain. Broad market indexes were pushed lower by technology issues.

The stock market continued a pattern set earlier this week of making sharp reversals in the waning hours of trading.

Declining issues led advancers by nearly 2 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange. Big Board volume was moderately heavy at 335.22 million shares as of 4 p.m., down from 378.77 million on Thursday.

Blue chip stocks were firm for most of the session, carried higher by a big gain in bond prices. The 30-year benchmark Treasury bond was up 1-7/32 points, or by about $12.19 for each $1,000 invested.

Broad stock indexes struggled all day with the weak technology sector and were brought sharply lower around 2:30 p.m. amid reports that National Semiconductor orders in September were flat. Traders worried that might signal an end to the boom in the computer chip business, where demand has been racing.

The sell-off spread across the technology stocks and then to the entire market, said David Shulman, Salomon Brothers’ market strategist.

“Some stocks get marked up at the end of the quarter, some investors enter into hedging strategies” Shulman said. “My guess is that the market has a problem, but not because of anything that happened today.”

Some of the stocks that moved substantially Friday:

NYSE

National Semiconductor fell 1-7/8 to 27-5/8

Micron Technology fell 3-1/8 to 79-1/2.

Compaq fell 1-1/4 to 48-3/8.

Texas Instruments fell 2-1/8 to 79-7/8.

Advanced Micro Devices fell 3/4 to 29-1/4.

National Semiconductor was said to have disclosed that its book-to-bill ratio was under 1 in September, indicating that for every $100 worth of products shipped, or billed, the company received less than $100 of orders, or bookings. Technology stocks, already weakened from nervous profit-taking, fell farther on the report.

Corrections Corp. rose 1-5/8 to 48-1/8.

Ladenburg Thalmann says the trend toward privatization of prisons could boost net income to 75 cents per share this year and $1.31 next year, from 53 cents in 1994. Corrections Corp. manages more than 40 percent of the private prison market.

Epitope fell 3/4 to 14.

The company is cutting its work force 28 percent and will take a fourth-quarter charge of $500,000.

NASDAQ

Hollywood Entertainment fell 6-1/16 to 21-7/16.

The company sees third-quarter revenues around $39 million, about 6 percent below earlier projections, and sales at stores open at least a year down between 3 percent and 4 percent.

Nexgen fell 1-7/8 to 18-3/4.

The company said its first-quarter loss will be wider than analysts’ estimates of 27 cents per share, citing price pressure from competitor Intel.

AMEX

Viacom “B,” fell 1-3/8 to 49-3/4.

The company said Thursday that it will issue 6.4 million Class B shares to complete its merger with Blockbuster Entertainment. That is down from the 39 million shares that could have been issued.