Ibm’s Spurt Enables Dow To Post Tiny Gain

With IBM rising on the strength of an analysts’ recommendation, the Dow Jones industrials squeaked into positive territory Wednesday, ending a quiet session of low-volume activity.

The Dow Jones industrial average ended up 1.11 at 5,712.38 at the closing bell. Advancing issues narrowly led decliners by 11 to 9 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Volume was low, with 296.39 million shares changing hands on the Big Board. That was slightly below Tuesday’s volume of 306.36 million shares.

The Dow had gained more than 10 points in the morning exclusively on the strength of IBM, which ended 3-1/4 points higher at 115.

Salomon Brothers upgraded the computer maker’s stock, noting that the quarter ending June 30 saw its “best revenue acceleration in the past 5 quarters,” and that the outlook for the second half of 1996 and for 1997 “is very positive.”

But stock prices eased in early afternoon as investors worried about the government’s latest borrowing binge, the sale of $12.5 billion in five-year notes by the Treasury.

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

NYSE

IBM rose 3-1/4 to 114-3/4.

Salomon Brothers upgraded IBM stock to strong buy from buy, noting that in the quarter ending June 30, the computer-making giant had its “best revenue acceleration in the past 5 quarters,” and that the outlook for the second half of 1996 and for 1997 “is very positive.”

PepsiCo fell 1 to 30.

The soft drink bottler continues to face setbacks in its battle with Coca Cola for market share, particularly in South America.

H&R Block Inc. fell 2 to 25-7/8.

The company postponed a shareholder vote on completing the spinoff of CompuServe Corp., citing CompuServe’s recent poor performance and uncertainty in the on-line industry.

Boeing rose 7/8 to 92-1/8.

The Seattle-based aircraft maker said Tuesday it will increase production of its big 777 airliner by 40 percent within the next year, and plans to add 5,000 more employees than previously projected to its overall work force for all of 1996.

NASDAQ

WorldCom fell 15/16 to 20-1/16.

MFS Communications fell 1-15/16 to 39-3/8.

The two issues led the action in Nasdaq trading for the third straight day, after WorldCom said Monday it would acquire MFS.

3Com Corp. rose 2-3/8 to 48-3/8.

The stock rose for the second day in a row, after the Santa Clara, Calif., company combined its enterprise sales force and customer service organizations with its growing local-area-network and wide-area-network operations to create a new organization, 3Com Systems.