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Nasdaq up 4 straight days
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March 24, 2000: 5:15 p.m. ET
End-of-quarter window dressing lifts tech stocks; Dow falters at week's end
By Staff Writer Jake Ulick
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - The Nasdaq composite index rose for the fourth straight session Friday as money managers snapped up the year's best-performing technology stocks five sessions before the end of the first quarter.
Cisco Systems, Qualcomm and Sun Microsystems -- all up more than 50 percent in the last three months -- surged as institutions dressed up portfolios to present clients with winning stocks.
"Window dressing is out; they are furnishing the entire house," said Andrew Barrett, technology analyst at Salomon Smith Barney, referring to the title of a report he's preparing. "Everyone wants to own the best performing stocks over the last quarter."
But the Dow Jones industrials edged lower, hampered by Johnson & Johnson, which plunged after becoming the second drug maker in three days to yank a product from the market.
The Nasdaq composite index rose 22.42 points to 4,963.03, after briefly trading above the 5,048.62 record close set March 10. For the week, the tech-heavy gauge surged 3.4 percent.
But the Dow fell 7.14 Friday to close at 11,112.72. Still, the index of 30 blue chip stocks advanced 4.6 percent over the last five days.
The broader S&P 500 rose 0.11 to 1,527.46, edging out a fourth consecutive record close.
Still, more stocks fell than rose. Decliners on the New York Stock Exchange outpaced advancers 1,507 to 1,438. Trading volume topped 1 billion shares. Nasdaq losers beat winners 2,212 to 2,010. Nearly 1.7 billion shares changed hands. 
The last three months have seen unprecedented market volatility. Nine of Nasdaq's 10 biggest point gains came this year, while four of the Dow's largest point losses occurred in 2000.
David Katz, stock analyst at Matrix Asset Advisors, told CNNfn's Market Coverage he sees more dramatic price swings ahead. (329K WAV) (329K AIFF)
In other markets, the dollar fell against the yen and euro. Treasury securities plunged.
Nasdaq builds a lead
The Nasdaq got support from some of its best performers Friday. Cisco Systems (CSCO: Research, Estimates) climbed 1-9/16 to 79-3/8, Qualcomm (QCOM: Research, Estimates) rose 1-7/8 to 146 and Sun Microsystems (SUNW: Research, Estimates) leapt 2-11/16 to 100-1/2.
In the days before the end of the first quarter next Friday, analysts expected more of this so-called window-dressing buying.
Barry Hyman, chief market strategist at Ehrenkrantz King Nussbaum, linked some of the tech optimism to relief that the latest Federal Reserve meeting is out of the way, coupled with expectations for a strong earnings-reporting season next month. Technology companies in the S&P 500 are forecast to grow by 26.2 percent in the first quarter, outpacing the 18.4 percent gain for the overall index, according to First Call/Thomson Financial.
Two rare profitable Internet firms made news Friday. Yahoo! (YHOO: Research, Estimates) gained 3 to 194, after a published report said the Internet portal and eBay (EBAY: Research, Estimates) are again discussing a $30 billion merger. Online auctioneer eBay gained 20-3/16 to 243-3/4.
Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Jefferies & Co., linked some of the day's buying to a government report showing that orders for durable goods fell last month.
"It shows the economy is not overheating," Hogan said. "One could argue that the job the (Federal Reserve) is doing (by raising interest rates) is working."
Durable goods orders fell 2.3 percent in February, slower than the unchanged level expected. The drop suggests to analysts that pockets of the economy are feeling the effects of higher interest rates.
But others discounted the report's significance, saying the month-to-month figures are often volatile and may not signal a trend.
Johnson & Johnson falls
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ: Research, Estimates) plunged 8-3/4 to 71-1/4 on Friday, after saying late Thursday it will no longer market its prescription heartburn medication Propulsid in the United States after the drug was linked to fatal heart rhythms in some users.
The news comes two days after Warner-Lambert Co. (WLA: Research, Estimates) announced it will withdraw its diabetes treatment Rezulin from the U.S. market, under pressure from federal regulators. Warner-Lambert dropped 1 to 93.
Keeping the Dow's losses in check, Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing (MMM: Research, Estimates) surged 3-7/8 to 90-7/8. Morgan Stanley Dean Witter made positive comments about the maker of Scotch Tape and Post-it Notes.
But US Airways (U: Research, Estimates) fell 1-1/16 to 22-3/8, after the sixth-largest U.S. air carrier said it offered its union alternative approaches for settling a heated labor dispute. A 30-day cooling-off period imposed by the Federal Mediation Board ends at 12:01 a.m. ET Saturday. 
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