Technology Issues Break Fall

It could have been a lot worse.

Stocks dropped sharply Monday, after Friday’s unexpectedly strong employment data removed resilient hope that the Federal Reserve might soon lower interest rates.

But the major indexes took their hits early and held steady for the remainder of the day, even as bond prices deteriorated in the afternoon.

The Dow Jones industrial average ended down 88.51 points at 5,594.37, having retraced a good portion of its 140-point intraday loss. A buying spurt in the final 30 minutes trimmed the Dow’s loss by 30 points.

Declining issues led advancers by about 7 to 1, but that was down from more than 20 to 1 earlier. Big Board volume was moderately heavy at 411.79 million shares, up from Thursday’s pace. The market was closed Good Friday.

Broad market indexes were sharply lower. The NYSE’s composite index fell 6.27 to 345.65. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index fell 11.62 to 644.24.

The Nasdaq composite index fell 13.42 to 1,104.79, while the American Stock Exchange’s market value index fell 6.62 to 570.48.

Some of the stocks that moved substantially or traded heavily:

NYSE

Alcoa Aluminum rose 1-1/4 to 63-1/4.

First-quarter net income fell to $1.01 a share from $1.08 a year ago. The current quarter results included an operating loss of $10.6 million tied to its Alcoa Electronic Packaging unit, which ceased production in early March and is up for sale. But first-quarter revenues rose.

Lucent Technology rose 1/4 to 30-7/8.

The spin-off of AT&T, priced an initial public offering late last Wednesday at $27 per share, and the stock rose to 30-5/8 in its first day of trading Thursday.

NASDAQ

Informix Corp. fell 7-1/8 to 18-3/8.

The company said first-quarter earnings would be between 7 cents and 10 cents a share, down from 28 cents a share a year ago, prior to a two-for-one stock split paid June 23, 1995.

AMEX

Trans World Airlines Inc. fell 1/2 to 21-1/2.

The St. Louis-based air carrier said its March load factor rose to 70.4 percent from 65.8 percent a year earlier.

Pegasus Gold rose 3/4 to 14-5/8.

Echo Bay rose 5/8 to 14.

Royal Oak Mines rose 1/8 to 4 3-16.

Gold stocks remained stable, even as the stock market took big losses, as the price of gold rose. Spot gold was up 80 cents an ounce at $395.10 an ounce in New York.