Market's Strength Wanes as Nasdaq, Russell Skid
The market's major indices surrendered much of their early vim and vigor, with two measures sliding into negative territory.
The
Dow Jones Industrial Average
was up 75 to 8104. The
S&P 500
was up 5 to 1049, the
Nasdaq Composite Index
was up 3 to 1747 and the
Russell 2000
was the laggard, down a fraction to 369. (After these figures were compiled, the Nasdaq joined the Russell in the loss column.)
The 30-year Treasury bond was recently down 13/32 to 105 10/32, yielding 5.15%.
On the
New York Stock Exchange
, 1,690 advancers were leading 1,297 decliners on 509 million shares.
Nasdaq Stock Market
winners were beating losers by a narrow 1,984 to 1,907 on 508 million shares.
On the NYSE, 110 issues were at new 52-week lows while 35 were at new highs. On the Nasdaq, 124 issues were at new lows while new highs totaled 36.
Tomorrow the
Federal Open Market Committee
is slated to meet in Washington. It is widely expected the FOMC will cut the short-term federal funds rate target, which currently stands at 5.5%.
There's some "optimistic" people out there thinking there's going to be a 50-basis-point rate cut tomorrow, said Jay Suskind, head of institutional equity trading at
Ryan Beck
, but he's not one of them. He said his guess is a 25-basis-point rate slicing. He said a 25-basis-point cut is already priced into the market.
The prime reason the market was up today was "a rally in anticipation of what the Fed's going to do tomorrow," said Suskind. The rate-cut factor outweighed the weekend agreement on Japanese banking reform and other contributors to today's up market.
Suskind said today's flow upward has been orderly, adding that 100- and 200-point days "aren't anything exciting anymore."
Most active on the Big Board today is
Unicom
(UCM)
, with 13 million shares changing hands. The stock was up 9/16 to 37.
On the Nasdaq, as usual,
Dell
(DELL) - Get Report
was volume leader with nearly 19 million shares trading. Dell was up 2 to 68 1/16, on pace for an all-time closing high.
