DOW JONES BREAKS 8,800; BUYERS IGNORE NEGATIVE NEWS, PUSH AVERAGE TO FOURTH CONSECUTIVE RECORD CLOSE.Byline: Patricia Lamiell Associated Press After digesting a steady flow of negative news all day, blue-chip stocks shot higher in the final 30 minutes of trading Thursday to notch their fourth consecutive record close. The Dow Jones industrial average Dow Jones Industrial Average The best known U.S. index of stocks. A price-weighted average of 30 actively traded blue-chip stocks, primarily industrials including stocks that trade on the New York Stock Exchange. closed up 27.65 points at 8,803.05, the first time above 8,800. Larry Wachtel, a market analyst at Prudential Securities, said ``an ocean of liquidity'' continues to buffer any possible downturn in stocks, even in the face of wage inflation and lower earnings projections. ``This is simply an unrelenting bull market,'' he said, ``and where it ends, I really don't know Don't know (DK, DKed) "Don't know the trade." A Street expression used whenever one party lacks knowledge of a trade or receives conflicting instructions from the other party. . Each time we pull back, people are conditioned to go in and buy.'' Broad indexes also rose to record highs, boosted by technology shares. The Standard & Poor's 500 list posted its fourth consecutive high, adding 4.22 to 1,089.74. The Nasdaq composite claimed its third closing high in four sessions, up 11.70 to 1,799.98. The NYSE composite index NYSE Composite Index Measures all common stocks listed on the New York Stock Exchange and four subgroup indexes: Industrial, Transportation, Utility, and Finance. The index tracks the change in market value of NYSE common stocks, adjusted to eliminate the effects of new listings notched its fourth consecutive closing high, rising 1.76 to 567.38. The American Stock Exchange American Stock Exchange (AMEX) Stock exchange in the U.S. Originally known as “the Curb,” it began as an outdoor marketplace in New York City c. 1850. It moved indoors to its present location in the Wall Street area in 1921. composite index Composite Index A grouping of equities, indexes or other factors combined in a standardized way, providing a useful statistical measure of overall market or sector performance over time. Also known simply as a "composite". was up 4.04 at 726.80, its second consecutive high. Advancing issues had a slim, 9-to-8 lead over decliners on the New York Stock Exchange New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) World's largest marketplace for securities. The exchange began as an informal meeting of 24 men in 1792 on what is now Wall Street in New York City. . Volume was a revised 585.7 million shares, off from Wednesday's pace. The 30-year Treasury bond was up 5/32 of a point late in the day, yielding 5.9 percent, after recovering from a -1/2-point loss earlier in the session. Bond prices faltered after the Labor Department said the nation's consumer prices, held in check by plummeting energy prices, rose a moderate 0.1 percent in February. Investors liked the overall figure because it met with analysts' expectations. But the core rate, minus the volatile food and energy sectors, was up 0.3 percent, slightly above analysts' expectations of a 0.2 percent rise, causing some economists to worry that the economy may be headed in an inflationary direction. Also disappointing to inflation worriers was a separate Commerce Department report that the nation's trade deficit in goods and services In economics, economic output is divided into physical goods and intangible services. Consumption of goods and services is assumed to produce utility (unless the "good" is a "bad"). It is often used when referring to a Goods and Services Tax. shot up 10.05 percent to $12 billion in January, with the imbalance in goods alone reaching an all-time high. Troubled Asian economies were importing fewer American goods, hurting export sales to the region, and, through currency devaluations, cutting the price of Asian goods on U.S. shelves, the Commerce report said. Imports were down 1 percent in January, but exports fell even more, 2.6 percent. Stock investors were largely unfazed un·fazed adj. Not fazed or disturbed. by that news or by a report that analysts at First Call Corp. have slashed their first-quarter earnings growth projections for Standard & Poor's 500 Index companies to 1.7 percent from 10.4 percent. Stock buyers are ``in denial about what is going on with earnings,'' Chuck Hill, First Call's director of research, said in an interview on CNBC CNBC Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition (artificial intelligence) CNBC Consumer News and Business Channel CNBC Congress of National Black Churches, Inc. Thursday. ``The last time it got down that low was in 1991, when we were in a recession,'' he said. ``I think it's a big red flag.'' CAPTION(S): Photo PHOTO Traders work at the American Stock Exchange on Thursday. At day's end, the composite index had reached another consecutive high. Associated Press |
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