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Wall Street spins its wheels
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May 20, 1999: 11:45 a.m. ET
Blue chips remain stranded in narrow positive territory as tech stocks sputter
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - U.S. stocks remained tentatively in the black late Thursday morning, but the gains lacked conviction and investors seemed unwilling to push the market higher in the wake of continued weakness in the once-invulnerable technology sector.
Shortly before 11:30 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 30.97 points at 10,918.36. On the New York Stock Exchange, advances outnumbered declines 1,714 to 937, as a relatively light 273 million shares traded.
The Nasdaq Composite edged up 4.28 points to 2,581.68 and the S&P 500 index rose 3.70 to 1,347.93. (Click here for a look at today's list of CNNfn's market movers.)
After a choppy start, trading remained wary, although some investors' nerves were soothed after Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's morning speech, which turned out to have little direct bearing on U.S. markets.
As the jitters subsided, the bond market remained directionless despite the latest U.S. trade deficit figures, which came in at a record and well above analysts' expectations. The benchmark 30-year Treasury bond slipped 5/32 of a point in price for a yield of 5.81 percent.
The dollar barely budged against both the yen and the euro, trading minimally higher against the euro but easing against the Japanese currency.
Techs lack resolve
In the stock market, technology shares found it difficult to regain bullish momentum after a narrowing growth outlook and profit margins at major computer maker Dell (DELL) sparked selling throughout the computer sector Wednesday.
On Thursday, the weakness continued, pushing shares of Dell rival Compaq (CPQ) down 3/8 to 25-5/8 while Gateway (GTW) shed 1-3/8 to 63-11/16 and Dell itself hovered around the zero line, shedding a scant 3/16 to 39-5/8. Among Dow computer makers, IBM (IBM) gave up another 7/8 to 235 and Hewlett Packard (HWP) eased 1/8 to 93-11/16.
Other technology bellwethers were mixed. Intel (INTC) shares slipped 3/4 to 58-15/16 as part of a general slide in semiconductor stocks that took AMD (AMD) down 1-1/8 to 20-1/2 and Micron Technology (MU) down 1-11/16 to 37-7/16.
Chip-equipment maker Etec Systems (ETEC) fed into the silicon selling, with shares falling 6-5/8 to 29-3/8 after the company reported fiscal third-quarter profits that missed Wall Street expectations by a penny a share. CS First Boston downgraded the stock to "hold" from "buy."
Software giant Microsoft (MSFT), however, crept up 1/8 to 79-7/16 amid reports that it is negotiating to buy into Deutsche Telekom's (DT) German cable TV network. American depositary receipts (ADRs) of DT climbed 1-5/8 to 39-5/8.
Elsewhere in the market, paper shares rallied after Morgan Stanley raised its second-quarter earnings estimates on several key players in the industry, forecasting that the recent upturn forestry-product prices would lead to pleasant profit surprises.
Dow component International Paper (IP) gained 1-1/8 to 55-1/8, while Georgia Pacific (GP) surged 2-15/16 to 92-13/16 and Weyerhaueser (WY) firmed 2-3/8 to 69-9/16. 
-- by staff writers Malina Poshtova Zang and Robert Scott Martin
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