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 Report

and

General Motors

(GM) - Get 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

Amazon.com

(AMZN) - Get Report

and

Sun Microsystems

(SUNW) - Get Report

leading the way down.

Microsoft

(MSFT) - Get 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 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.