US stocks higher after five days of selling
A small rally halted Wall Street’s five-day losing streak today, but a lack of market-moving news and light volume meant there was little conviction behind the gains. Tech stocks, which bore the brunt of the market’s recent selling, regained the most ground.
Even with Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan reiterating his bullish economic outlook on Capitol Hill, many investors seemed to be holding back until next week’s job and payroll reports, which are expected to give a clearer picture of the economic recovery. Only bargain-hunters and a handful of institutional buyers seemed to fuel the advance, analysts said.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 35.25, or 0.3%, to 10,601.62.
Broader stock indicators were also higher. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index was up 4.58, or 0.4%, at 1,143.67, and the tech-dominated Nasdaq composite index gained 17.54, or 0.9%, to 2,022.98.
With the Dow still more than 100 points off its recent high of 10,714.88, set on February 17, stocks are not expected to move much higher in the coming weeks, especially with earnings season over and no big economic news expected.
Stocks managed the advance despite some disappointment over the National Association of Realtors’ report that existing home sales fell 5.2% in January to 6.04 million from 6.37 million in December. Analysts had been expecting 6.25 million homes sold for the month.
There was better news about mortgages. According to the Mortgage Bankers Association of America, consumers are still responding to historically low interest rates. The association’s mortgage application index rose 2.1% for the week, while its refinancing index climbed 1.9%.
New mortgages and refinancing are considered barometers of economic growth, as consumers feel comfortable enough to take on more debt and, in the case of refinancing, have more money to put back into the economy.
Lucent Technologies and Cisco Systems unveiled a new Internet-based method for handling mobile phone calls, which could make such calls cheaper. Lucent gained 9 cents to 4.13 and Cisco climbed 53 cents to 23.58.
H&R Block tumbled 4.09 to 54.41 after the tax and financial services company reported a 19% drop in quarterly profits due to lower mortgage-asset sales.
High class jeweller Tiffany posted a 24% rise in profits for the latest quarter and gave a bright outlook for 2004. Tiffany surged 2.36 to 39.48.
Yahoo! lost 42 cents to 43.34 after Goldman Sachs released a bullish research report on the stock, reiterating its “outperform” rating.
The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies gained 7.17, or 1.2%, to 579.04.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by more than 3 to 2 on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume totalled 1.34 billion shares, compared with 1.53 billion at the same point on Tuesday.
