TSC 21: Level 3 Provides Juice
TheStreet.com 21 edged up Friday thanks to strong moves in two bastions of volatility.
The index, designed two months ago as a way to foretell the economy's direction, added 0.76 points, or 0.07%, to 1059.53. It now stands about 6% above its July 3 open of 1000 in what theoretically should be a harbinger of recovery.
Pacing the move were big gains in
Level 3 Communications
(LVLT)
and
Continental Airlines
(CAL)
.
Level 3 rose 52 cents, or 11.7%, to $4.97. While there was no obvious news, the shares might have caught a bid on word one of its major investors, Warren Buffett, remains interested in telecom and recently added a big slug of
Nextel
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debt to his company's investment portfolio.
Continental rose 51 cents, or 3.5%, to $15.26. Several airline stocks rallied Friday on news
UAL
won't emerge from bankruptcy this year.
In all, 13 of the indices 21 components rose, on a day in which the
Dow Jones Industrial Average
gained 42 points, or 0.4%, to 9416 and the
Nasdaq
gained 10 points, or 0.6%, to 1811.
Leading to the downside was
Smurfit Stone Container
(SSCC)
, which fell 19 cents, or 1.2%, to $15.78.