Thursday: Dashing Through the Snow
Maybe it's the holiday spirit. Maybe it's the anticipation of the office party. Maybe it's the record bonuses.
Whatever the reason, traders sent the
Dow Jones Industrial Average
higher as the Christmas countdown -- and rally -- continues. To be sure, the revelers got just a little out of hand: the
New York Stock Exchange
imposed a trading curb at 10:25 a.m. when the market shot up 50 points.
No doubt, a party in the bond market helped the stock celebration. Interest rates started falling after revised jobless claims for last week offered a bit of evidence that a slower economy might be one of the gifts under the tree. And news that America's trade deficit with the rest of the world posted its biggest drop ever -- down 30% to $8 billion -- also fueled the fixed-income fiesta. The 30-year bond rose 23/32, pushing the yield down to 6.65%.
Big winners midday:
General Electric
(GE:NYSE) and
Merck
(MRK:NYSE). The electronic appliances maker got a 2 1/8 kick after its board voted to increase its quarterly dividend and speed up its share buy-back program. Merck rose 2 5/8 after announcing it was joining with
Rhone-Poulenc
to form the world's largest animal medicine business. Both stocks are Dow components.
Traders were keeping their eyes on
3Com
(COMS:Nasdaq), expected to announce earnings after the close. The whisper in trading rooms is the maker of "router" technology will beat street estimates of 55-cents-a-share profits. 3Com gave up a little ground this morning, but that was after surging 5 1/8 to 77 1/2 yesterday.
Those getting an early lump of coal in their stocking: investors in Japan Inc. Yesterday, the
Nikkei Average
slid 2.6%, or 522 yen, to 19,571 -- the year's lowest levels. Published reports of rumors that
Kankaku Securities
, one of the country's largest investment houses, had suffered
Daiwa Bank
-sized trading losses in New York and that perennial basket-case
Nippon Credit Bank
was on the verge of announcing balance sheet mayhem, helped drag the average lower.
By Andrew Morse