Dow Moves Little In Slow Session
Some investors shopped for bargains on the day after Christmas, but stocks posted only minor gains Friday as most players chose to skip what amounted to the slowest session all year.
The Dow Jones industrial average pulled back from an early 57-point bounce, but rose 19.18 to 7,679.31 by the 1 p.m. close, trimming the week’s loss to 79.98 and pushing this year’s gain back above 19 percent.
Most broad-market indexes also pulled back after an early spurt, although the Nasdaq market managed a sizable gain amid some bargain-hunting in the battered technology group.
But with only a skeleton crew in attendance, and most money managers hoping to finish out the year without giving back any more of 1997’s gains, most of the day’s activity was very restrained.
Only 154.84 million shares changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the lowest tally all year and down substantially from the 263.33 million shares traded Christmas Eve, when stock trading also was shortened. Markets were closed Thursday in observance of Christmas. The previous low-volume day this year was Nov. 28, the day after Thanksgiving, when 189.70 million shares were traded on the Big Board.
Among the Dow 30, the only two components to budge at least a point were IBM, up 2-9/16 to 101-11/16, and Merck, up 2-1/4 to 103-1/2.
Those who did show up for Friday’s session encountered mixed signals from overseas, where South Korean shares posted a big rebound, but Japanese stocks slid sharply.
South Korea’s battered stock market surged 6.7 percent Friday, the first day of trading since early Thursday’s news that the International Monetary Fund and the Group of Seven industrialized countries would expedite $10 billion in loans as part of a $57 billion bailout plan.
In Tokyo, the Nikkei stock average fell 3.3 percent on worries about possible further corporate failures in Japan’s fiscal crisis. Major European financial markets remained closed Friday for post-Christmas observances.
“You’re seeing some positive steps (toward resolving the Asian fiscal crisis), but it’s a work in progress, so the short-term swings on overseas markets aren’t that important a story anymore,” said Barry Hyman, senior equity analyst at Ehrenkrantz King Nussbaum.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 6-to-5 margin on the NYSE. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock list rose 3.76 to 936.46, and the NYSE composite index rose 1.28 to 493.60.
The Nasdaq composite index rose 11.85 to 1,511.38, led by Microsoft, up 1-13/16 to 120-3/4, and Cisco Systems, up 1-5/8 to 53-3/16.
The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 0.45 to 421.49, and the small-company dominated American Stock Exchange composite index rose 1.17 to 663.77.