Traders Head Out of Town Early for Long Weekend; Stocks End Little Changed

Volume was thin all day after a pretty lousy week on Wall Street.

Author:: Eileen Kinsella
Publish date:: May 26, 2000 5:22 PM EDT

In typical New York fashion, many traders said

Fuhgeddaboutit

when it came to the stock market today. Trading was choppy and volume light as many opted to start the holiday weekend a little earlier.

Who could blame them after the last few trading sessions? In the past week, the

Dow Jones Industrial Average

shed 327.61 points, or 3.1% while the

Nasdaq Composite Index

gave up 185.25, or 5.3% in lackluster action marked by aimless swings, thin volume and rallies that quickly crumbled.

Even on the days when futures looked solid in morning action -- and there were a number this week -- the market failed to deliver and the headfakes are beginning to try investor patience.

"This is kind of more of the same. We've had the summer doldrums for a few months and its only May," said John Babyak, portfolio manager at

WHB/Wolverine Asset Management

in Stamford, Conn. "There is no direction right now. Who is going to step up to buy," he said, characterizing his own buying as more like "nibbling" than anything else.

On the bright side, the Dow and the Nasdaq Comp staged a very late-day rally that brought both indices off their lows. The Comp finished the day off 0.2, or 0.01%, at 3205.15 after bouncing in a negative, but narrow range throughout the day. At its intraday low, it was off around 46 points.

The Dow lost 24.68, or 0.2%, to 10,299.24, after a failed attempt to break even in the market's closing moments. The

S&P 500

fell 3.49, or 0.3%, to 1378.03 while the small-cap

Russell 2000

edged up 1.2, or 0.3%, to 457.37.

"It's just a continuation of the trend that we've seen. Interest rate concerns are pretty much hitting every industry," right now, said Brian Conroy, head of listed trading at

J.P. Morgan

. Even the days that that opened with hopes up on higher futures quickly eroded, he noted.

Conroy said yesterday's negative comments on

Goldman Sachs

(GS) - Get Report

earnings outlook provided a "reality check for the financial sector," noting that financial stocks are the "backbone of the market."

He also noted the weakness in the retailing sector, marked by a series of earnings misses, another of which hit today and pulled much of the sector down with it. The

S&P Retail Index

fell 2.1%.

Trouble stemmed from

Office Depot

(ODP) - Get Report

, which got worked over by investors after it warned that its second-quarter earnings will miss the consensus estimate of 24 cents, by 4 cents to 6 cents a share.

The company said profits were squeezed by a strong dollar, which reduced the value of foreign sales as well as weaker same-store sales. The stock plummeted 30.4%.

Related retailers were also feeling the pain with

Staples

(SPLS)

getting clipped 7%. Electronic retailers

Circuit City

(CC) - Get Report

and

Best Buy

(BBY) - Get Report

also lost some power. Circuit City fell 9%, while Best Buy lost 10.8%.

Dow component

Eastman Kodak

(EK)

rose 3% after

Credit Suisse First Boston

added the stock to its focus list and rated it a strong buy.

Lucent

(LU)

lost its earlier steam, slipping 0.5% after early gaining more than 5%.

SG Cowen

said it was optimistic about the company's optical business. Other telecommunications giants performed well, including

BellSouth

(BLS)

up 2.5% and

GTE

(GTE) - Get Report

up 2.2%.

Internet stocks were mixed, with

TheStreet.com Internet Sector

squeezing out a 5.46-point, or 0.7%, gain. For the week, the DOT lost 8.7%.

The S&P 500 lost 2.1% in the latest week, the Russell 2000 lost 4.7%, the

Dow Jones Transportation Average

braked 2%, the

Dow Jones Utility Average

slipped 0.3% and the

American Stock Exchange Composite Index

lost 3.6%

Rays of Hope?

But amid all the gloom and doom, some are predicting there may be some light ahead. Babyak said that while no one is eager to attempt calling a bottom on this market, there "are some signs that we're nearing a bottom," noting a dampening in volatility as we pull back and test the lows.

"It's almost like the market is wringing out the excess. Every time we get a rally, there is some short covering. The destructive nature of this market is lessening. That would portend a bottom," he said. "It might take a week or it might take two months, but we are going to have a rally at some point."