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Wall St. on higher ground
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February 3, 1999: 1:34 p.m. ET
Stocks make cautious advances as investors wait for interest-rate news
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - U.S. stocks crept higher in afternoon trading Wednesday, with investors still nervously awaiting the results of the Federal Reserve's first policy meeting of the year before making a decisive move in or out of the market.
Shortly before 1:30 p.m. ET the Dow Jones industrial average was 57.93 points higher at 9,332.05. Trading volume on the New York Stock Exchange reached 500 million shares on positive breadth, with gainers beating losers 1,426 to 1,393.
The Nasdaq Composite rose 14.99 to 2,478.41 and the S&P 500 index inched up 4.26 to 1,266.25. (Click here for a look at today's CNNfn market movers)
The stock market felt continued pressure after its steep decline Tuesday as investors bailed out of shares many have come to believe are overvalued. Speculation that the Federal Reserve will leave interest rates unchanged this time, but will adopt a bias toward raising them in the future if the economy continues growing at its current robust pace, also weighed in, limiting the market's upside move. The outcome of the Fed's meeting is expected to be announced around 2:15 p.m. ET.
The bond market recovered at midmorning after the Treasury department announced its first quarterly refunding schedule for the year and said it was considering cutting down on the sales of 30-year bonds and 2-year notes because of the government's lesser borrowing needs. The benchmark 30-year Treasury bond traded 3/32 of a point higher in price, for a yield of 5.23 percent.
The dollar lingered in a narrow trading range after Tuesday's sharp losses against the Japanese yen.
Good, but not enough
Technology issues once again were among the market's most active, as investors digested the latest blue-chip earnings report from the sector -- that of network systems maker Cisco Systems (CSCO).
Late Tuesday Cisco said it earned 36 cents a share in its fiscal second quarter, before special items, beating expectations by a penny. But investors, who had hoped to see even better results and possibly a stock split, pushed the stock down 7/16 to 111-15/16.
Lehman Brothers raised its fiscal year 2000 earnings estimate for Cisco and increased its 12-month price target for the company to $125 from $115 a share.
Other big-league technology stocks were mixed, with Dow component IBM (IBM) losing 1-3/4 to 175. Big Blue Wednesday unveiled an English-speaking Web browser aimed at helping blind and visually impaired people take advantage of the Internet.
Microsoft (MSFT) eased 1/4 to 167-3/8, Intel (INTC) gained 2-13/16 to 137-5/16 and Dell Computer (DELL) traded 5/16 lower at 108-5/16.
The day's newsmakers also included tire giant Goodyear (GT), which entered a global joint venture deal with Japan's Sumitomo Rubber Industries and separately announced it would get rid of as many as 2,800 workers, or 3 percent of its total workforce. The deal, which eventually could result in the complete takeover of Sumitomo by Goodyear, provides for both companies to buy stakes in each other. Shares of Goodyear rose 1-13/16 to 52-3/16.
Another deal, this time involving hotel businesses, catapulted shares of Patriot American Hospitality (PAH) up 11/16, or more than 13 percent, to 5-3/4 following a Wall Street Journal report that Hilton Hotels (HLT) is in preliminary talks to buy as much as $1 billion worth of hotels from Patriot and could invest about $350 million in equity in Patriot, the troubled hotel real estate investment trust. Hilton's stock eased 3/16 to 14-3/16.
Finally, shares of St. John Knits (SJK) rallied 1-5/8 to 27-5/8 on news Vestar Capital Partners is buying the company for $30 a share. 
-- by staff writer Malina Poshtova Zang
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