IBM LEADS TECH RALLY; DOW OBLITERATES EARLY-WEEK SLUMP TO POST 10TH RECORD HIGH IN 14 SESSIONS.Byline: Patricia Lamiell Associated Press Associated Press: see news agency. Associated Press (AP) Cooperative news agency, the oldest and largest in the U.S. and long the largest in the world. A strong profit report from IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) gave investors the signal to buy technology stocks again Thursday, pushing 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. to yet another new high. The Dow climbed 145.76 to 10,727.18, moving well past Wednesday's closing high of 10,581.42 and posting its 10th record high close in 14 sessions. The Dow is now up nearly 17 percent for the year. Broader stock indicators also moved higher as Monday's fierce sell-off in technology shares became a distant memory. The Standard & Poor's 500 index was up 22.71 at 1,358.83, just eclipsing its own previous closing high of 1,358.63. The Nasdaq composite index Nasdaq Composite Index An index that indicates price movements of securities in the over-the-counter market. It includes all domestic common stocks in the Nasdaq System (approximately 5,000 stocks) and is weighted according to the market value of each listed rose 72.53 to 2,561.61. IBM led the Dow higher, advancing $22.625 to $194.50 and pushing other technology stocks higher. After the market closed Wednesday, IBM reported first-quarter earnings of $1.55 a share, decisively beating year-ago results of $1.06 and analysts' estimates of $1.41. IBM's results reassured investors who have been nervously shuttling between technology issues and more conservative blue-chip issues. ``Today's rally began at 4:01 p.m. yesterday,'' said Ed Laux, lead stock trader at ABN Amro/The Chicago Corp., ``when IBM's earnings came out.'' Hugh Johnson Hugh Johnson may refer to:
strategian, strategist - an expert in strategy (especially in warfare) , said IBM's earnings, which included strong results overseas, also signaled that the world economy is recovering after a nearly two-year slump. ``IBM seems to have put to rest all of the worries about the tech sector of the U.S. economy and about personal computers in particular,'' Johnson said. Bond prices fell Thursday, but Wall Street for once did not follow - an apparent return, Johnson said, to the classic market tenet that a growing economy is good for the stock market although it can push interest rates higher and bond prices down. The 30-year Treasury bond was off $10.62 per $1,000 value late in the day, pushing its yield, which moves opposite the price, up to 5.60 percent from 5.53 percent late Wednesday. Technology shares led the broad advance in the stock market. Dell rose $3.4375 to $41.875, and Intel climbed $3.0625 to $61.50, both in Nasdaq trading. In the telecommunications sector, Lucent Technologies rose $2.625 to $61.75 on better-than-expected earnings. But GTE GTE General Telephone & Electronics GTE Génie Thermique et Énergie (French) GTE Gas Turbine Engine GTE Global Tropospheric Experiment GTE Geothermal Energy GTE Gas Turbine Efficiency plc (Sweden & USA) declined 6.25 cents to $66.8125, and Bell Atlantic fell 62.5 cents to $57.875. |
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