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Strong data hurt stocks
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March 1, 1999: 10:28 a.m. ET
NAPM index jumps in January, sends bond yields surging as stocks drop
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - U.S. stocks opened mixed but quickly headed south early Monday, after a much awaited manufacturing conditions index came in stronger than expected, hitting the bond market hard and rekindling investors' fears of rising interest rates.
Shortly after 10 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones industrial average was 63.30 points lower at 9,243.28. Market breadth on the New York Stock Exchange was negative, with advances trailing declines 990 to 1,345 as trading volume reached 112 million shares.
The Nasdaq Composite, heavily loaded with technology stocks, shed 23.71 points, or about 1 percent, to 2,264.32. The S&P 500 index lost 13.37, also about 1 percent, to 1,224.96.
The bond market opened slightly higher but quickly slid into the red following the release of strong personal income and spending numbers for January. This was followed by the National Association of Purchasing Management's index for January, a key gauge of manufacturing activity, that came in well above expectations. Construction spending numbers, also for January, also beat expectations.
The benchmark 30-year Treasury bond lost 1-1/4 points in price, raising the yield to 5.66 percent.
The dollar strengthened against both the yen and the euro, helped by all the signs showing the U.S. economy is in good health, while Japan and Europe are having hard times.
Techs shaky again
Investor sentiment toward the battered technology sector did not change over the weekend, even in the wake of severe losses among major high-tech stocks Friday.
Market players showed little mercy for shares of Dell (DELL), which fell 1-7/8 to 78-1/4, Compaq (CPQ), dropping 2-3/16 to 33-3/16, Cisco (CSCO) off 3/4 to 97-1/16, and Intel (INTC), down 4-3/8 to 115-9/16. Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette lowered its rating of the world's premier PC chip maker to "market perform" from "buy."
On the Dow, Hewlett Packard (HWP) fell 2-7/8 to 63-916 and IBM (IBM) lost 3-7/8 to 165-7/8.
Software titan Microsoft (MSFT) eased 9/16 to 149-27/32.
Disk drive maker Quantum (QNTM) bucked the negative trend, rallying 2-3/4, or nearly 17 percent, to 19-3/16 after early Monday the company said it would replace its common shares with two tracking stocks in an effort to better track the value of its tape drive and storage systems businesses.
But bad news haunted the shares of Internet auction firm eBay (EBAY) after late Friday the company said the federal government was investigating possible illegal transactions on its Web site. eBay, whose stock is splitting 3-for-1 today, shed 23 to 311. 
-- by staff writer Malina Poshtova Zang
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