Dow Jones Flirts With 7,500 Mark

The Dow Jones industrial average flirted with 7,500 for the first time and records fell along a broad front Monday as a surge of investor enthusiasm for blue-chip stocks carried over from Friday.

The Dow rose 42.72 to close at 7,478.50, pushing the blue-chip barometer’s gains for the year above 1,000 points, or about 16 percent.

The average bobbed above 7,500 several times during the day before retreating during the last hour. At these levels, it has taken less of a leap in terms of percentage gains to pass such milestones, with the Dow first breaking above 6,000 in October and 7,000 in February.

“This market is surging, technically it’s fully in gear,” said Richard E. Cripps, chief market strategist for Legg Mason of Baltimore. “Most of the investors who we talked to still have a fair amount of cash.”

Broader indicators also set new highs despite a weak day in the bond market, where traders secured some profits from Friday’s sharp advance.

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

NYSE

BankAmerica, up 3/4 at 124.

The San Francisco-based bank agreed to acquire the investment banking firm of Robertson Stephens & Co. for $540 million. Separately, BankAmerica agreed to sell a consumer lending operation, Security Pacific Financial Services, for $1.6 billion to Commercial Credit Co., a unit of Travelers Group.

American States Financial, up 7-1/4 at 45-3/8.

Safeco, a Seattle-based property-casualty insurer, has agreed to pay $2.82 billion, or $47 per share, for the Indianapolis-based insurance firm.

NASDAQ

Comcast special shares, up 2-15/16 at 21-3/8.

Comcast class A, up 3-3/16 at 21-7/16.

Microsoft agreed to invest $1 billion in Comcast, the nation’s fourth-largest cable company, in an effort to push forward the marriage of the Internet and television. The deal will give Microsoft an 11.5 percent stake in Philadelphia-based Comcast.

AMEX

Cablevision Systems, up 9-3/4 at 44-3/8.

Tele-Communications Inc. Class A (Nasdaq), up 1 at 16-1/16.

TCI, the nation’s biggest cable company, agreed to sell New Yorkarea cable systems with 820,000 customers to Cablevision. In return, TCI will get a 33 percent stake in the company. Cablevision, based in Woodbury, N.Y., will assume about $669 million of TCI debt with the 10 systems.