Rebound Fails As Stocks Add To Friday’s Slump

Stocks failed Monday in a bid for another quick rebound from a sell-off propelled by a strong monthly employment report. Word Friday of robust jobs growth sent new inflation shudders through financial markets.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 37.31 to 5,550.83, adding to the 115-point plunge in Friday’s abbreviated session after bobbing slightly higher twice on Monday’s full day of trading.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers by a broad margin all day, but broad market indexes were only slightly lower much of the session before faltering.

“It looks like all we had was a little bottom fishing that failed,” said Richard A. Dickson, a technical analyst at Scott & Stringfellow Inc. in Richmond, Va. “They tried to bounce it up, but it couldn’t hold the gains.”

Bonds started to rebound from Friday’s slide, but finished almost unchanged, with the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond holding at 7.18 percent. That rate had stood at 6.93 percent before Friday’s employment report.

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

NYSE

Motorola, up 1-7/8 at 67-3/4.

Cowen & Co. raised its investment opinion on the maker of semiconductors and telecommunications equipment to “strong buy” from “neutral,” the Dow Jones News Service reported, citing a market source.

Tandy, down 4-5/8 at 40-5/8.

The electronics retailer’s sales at stores open at least 12 months fell 2 percent in June compared with a year earlier. Total sales - a less popular measure of retailing - rose 11 percent. Tandy said the relatively flat same-store sales and additional expenses will likely cause second-quarter earnings to be down about 30 percent from a year earlier.

NASDAQ

Renaissance Capital, up 1-7/8 at 9-7/8.

Russia restored the visa of Boris Jordan, a top American investment banker. Renaissance Capital, the firm Jordan started last year, said he returned to Moscow Friday. The visa was restored after the July 3 presidential runoff between Boris Yeltsin and his unsuccessful Communist challenger. Nationalism was a major theme in the race, and the revocation of his visa had worried the foreign investment community in Russia.

In Focus Systems, down 6 at 17.

The maker of flat-panel liquid-crystal displays posted a loss of 10 cents a share for the second quarter rather than the profit expected by analysts. In Focus attributed the unexpected loss to price competition for a key product and supply problems.

Isocor, down 4-3/8 at 9-1/8.

The software maker cautioned that it expects to report a wider loss for the second quarter.