Stocks Cap Wild Week With Modest Advance

Stocks ended Friday’s whirlwind session barely higher, but enough to push several market indexes to record levels for the fifth consecutive session, and one to a sixth straight high.

The Dow Jones industrial average ended up 2.17 points at a new high of 5,541.62. It was the fifth straight record for Wall Street’s best-known indicator, its 10th in the last 11 sessions and its 12th high in the past 15 trading days.

The blue-chip average rallied more than 45 points in the morning, then slid to minus-26 on computer-driven selling around midday. But the Dow slowly trimmed its losses through the afternoon, maintaining a pattern of rallying into the close that has prevailed all week.

Advancing issues led decliners by a slim margin on the New York Stock Exchange. Volume was heavy at 476.63 million shares as of 4 p.m., ahead of Thursday’s pace.

The broad market finished mostly higher. The NYSE’s composite index rose 0.29 to 349.44, the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index rose 0.31 to 656.38, and the Nasdaq composite rose 1.42 to 1,094.59. All three indexes broke through Thursday’s record highs. It was the sixth straight record for the Nasdaq composite and the fifth consecutive high for the other two indicators.

Traders and analysts said the current strength in the stock market is in large part the result of record investments of cash into stock mutual funds.

The Investment Company Institute, a mutual fund trade group, said Wednesday that investors had put a record $24.5 billion more into stock mutual funds in January than they had removed.

Some of the stocks that moved substantially Friday:

NYSE

Boeing rose 3-1/8 to 82-5/8.

The company’s rebounding commercial-jetliner unit is expected to hire at least 7,000 new and laid-off workers for newly created jobs by early 1997, according to people tracking the company’s hiring plans, Friday’s Wall Street Journal reports. Boeing had no comment.

Chrysler fell 1 to 55-3/4.

The stock finished lower after gaining sharply earlier in day, as investors reacted to the automaker’s deal, struck Thursday with Kirk Kerkorian, to improve shareholder value. Kerkorian won a seat on the company’s board in exchange for not trying to take over the automaker and a sweeping five-year standstill agreement.

Ford Motor rose 3/4 to 30-1/4.

General Motors rose 5/8 to 52.

The other Big Three auto stocks rose in sympathy with Chrysler. All three announced production cutbacks on Thursday. The stocks also rose in sympathy with other deep cyclical companies.

Stone Container rose 1-1/8 to 15-3/8.

Bowater rose 1-5/8 to 40-1/8.

Merrill Lynch raised its long-term ratings on these two paper companies, lifting Stone to long-term buy from hold, and Bowater to buy from above average.

NASDAQ

Cisco Systems rose 2-3/8 to 91-1/4.

Bay Networks rose 1-3/4 to 47-7/8.

3Com rose 1-3/4 to 50-5/8.

Cisco’s second-quarter net income rose to 67 cents a share from 19 cents, adjusted for a 21-cent special charge related to acquisition of Lightstream Corp. assets. Shares of big networkers followed Cisco higher.