The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper The Spokesman-Review
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883
Current Temperature
32°F
Current Conditions
Overcast clouds
View complete weather report

Color Scheme

Subscribe now

Asian Crisis Fuels Stock Pullback

Associated Press

Hopes for a January rally faded Thursday, with stocks falling sharply as yet another tame inflation report proved uninspiring alongside another rough day in Asia and another dire forecast from the technology group.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 99.65 to 7,802.62.

Most broad-market indexes also suffered sizable losses, although the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite market fell only modestly despite the latest in a stream of profit warnings from Seagate Technologies, the leading maker of computer disk drives.

For the first five sessions of the new year, the Dow has now lost about 160 points, a showing that often bodes poorly for the full year, according to historians.

For the second straight day, investors woke up to unsettling developments in Southeast Asia, this time in Indonesia, where financial markets plunged amid fears that the International Monetary Fund will yank back a $40 billion bailout package due to the Jakarta government’s failure to implement required reform measures.

On U.S. markets, declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 5-to-3 margin on the New York Stock Exchange, where trading was extremely heavy again. NYSE volume totaled 651.25 million shares as of 4 p.m., the second straight session above 650 million and the fourth straight above 600 million.

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

NYSE

AT&T, up 2-5/8 at 62-5/8.

Teleport Communications Group (Nasdaq), down 3-5/8 at 54-1/8.

AT&T’s shares rose amid reports, confirmed after the close, that it is buying Teleport, a provider of local telephone service in 28 states, for stock valued at about $11 billion.

MedPartners, down 8-11/64 at 10.

Phycor (Nasdaq), down 1-5/8 at 24-7/8.

America Service Group (Nasdaq), down 3-3/4 at 8-7/8.

MedPartners and Phycor, the nation’s two biggest physician management companies, announced late Wednesday that they’ve called off a $6.25 billion merger. The drop in MedPartners’ stock price pulled down America Service, which had previously agreed to be acquired by MedPartners for stock.

NASDAQ

SportsLine USA, up 3-3/8 at 17.

An analyst at BancAmerica Robertson Stephens said CBS’s promotion of the Internet-based sports media company during the Winter Olympics will provide a significant boost to SportsLine’s audience during the first quarter, Dow Jones News Service reported.