Stocks Modestly Lower Amid Rate Concerns
Continuing worries about higher interest rates have the major indices on the downside, though not extremely badly.
Interest rates actually are declining modestly, with the bellwether 30-year Treasury bond up 9/32 to 90 31/32 with its yield easing to 5.90%.
The
Dow Jones Industrial Average
was down 60 to 10,853, with
IBM
(IBM) - Get International Business Machines Corporation Report
and
General Motors
(GM) - Get General Motors Company Report
applying the most pressure. The
S&P 500
was down 7 to 1331.
On the tech side, the
Nasdaq Composite Index
was off 12 to 2516, with
TheStreet Recommends
Amazon.com
(AMZN) - Get Amazon.com Inc. Report
and
Sun Microsystems
(SUNW) - Get Sunworks Inc. Report
leading the way down.
Microsoft
(MSFT) - Get Microsoft Corporation Report
was up 11/16 to 77 5/8, however.
The
Russell 2000
was down 2 to 441 and
TheStreet.com Internet Sector
index was off 3 to 626.
Most Up at Open -- NYSE
Frontier (FRO) - Get Frontline Ltd. Report, up 1 3/4 to 57 7/8
: The company, already set to merge with
Global Crossing
(GBLX)
, was benefiting from terms of Global Crossing's just-announced merger with
U S West
(USW)
.
Most Up at Open -- Nasdaq
Medical Manager (MMGR) , up 14 5/16 to 48 1/16
:
Synetic
(SNTC)
agreed to acquire Medical Manager for $1.4 billion.
Most Down at Open -- NYSE
IBM, down 2 5/8 to 236 5/8
.
Most Down at Open -- Nasdaq
Synetic, down 3 to 92 1/2
: See above.