Investors Put The Brakes On Stock Market Slide

Things started to look grim again on Wall Street, but when Monday didn’t turn into a repeat of Friday’s rout, investors began bottom-fishing, helping the Dow Jones industrial average regain more than 100 points.

The Dow, which on Friday tumbled 247 points for its second worst point-loss ever, rebounded over the final two hours of Monday’s session, erasing a 76-point slide and then rising 108.70 to 7,803.36

“People came in today expecting the worst, but the worst never materialized,” said Larry Rice, chief investment officer at Josephthal, Lyon & Ross, noting numerous media reports over the weekend suggesting the market’s downturn has further to go.

Broad-market measures also rallied into the close, led by technology shares, which had been struggling most of the day after a disappointing profit report from Hewlett-Packard.

Noting that similar high-profile earnings disappointments had triggered last summer’s bruising selloff, analysts said it was encouraging to see such resilience in the stock market, particularly after troubling profit forecasts issued by Coca-Cola and Gillette over the past two weeks.

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

NYSE

Hewlett-Packard, down 2-/14 at 63-13/16.

Pinched by price cuts in an increasingly competitive personal-computer market, Palo Alto, Calif.-based HP reported a third-quarter profit that was well below expectations.

Monterey Resources, up 5-5/16 at 20-3/8.

Texaco agreed to acquire the oil and gas company for $21 a share in stock. Texaco, based in White Plains, N.Y., will also assume about $285 million of debt from Monterey, which is based in Bakersfield, Calif.

Gillette, down 2-13/16 at 83-1/16.

The stock sank for a second session after Gillette warned Wall Street analysts to lower their 1997 and 1998 earnings forecasts for the company.

Allied Group, down 2-15/16 at 46-5/16.

Advest and A.G. Edwards & Sons downgraded the stock, the Dow Jones News Service reported.

NASDAQ

Benthos, up 8-3/4 at 26-1/2.

An article in Barron’s included a positive note on the underwater equipment maker. Benthos is based in North Falmouth, Mass.

Amylin Pharmaceuticals, down 6-7/16 at 8-7/16.

The San Diego-based company released data showing that one of its experimental drugs had no significant impact on certain diabetes patients after a year of treatment. Pramlintide is a synthetic copy of the human hormone amlyin, which is deficient in diabetic patients who use insulin.