|
Nasdaq up; Dow down
|
 |
March 31, 2000: 5:43 p.m. ET
The day ends much like 1Q does, with blue chips off and tech shares up
By Jake Ulick
|
NEW YORK (CNNfn) - The Nasdaq composite index surged more than 100 points Friday, breaking a four-day losing streak as bargain hunters snapped up chip makers, software firms, and telecommunications equipment companies cheapened by the recent sell-off.
But the Dow Jones industrial average edged lower, building on Thursday's losses, as drops in General Electric and International Business Machines could not offset gains to Intel and Microsoft.
Trading was choppy on the last day of the first quarter, with the Nasdaq seesawing as investors debated whether the year's best-performing technology stocks still merited their relatively high prices.
But those issues firmed by day's end, as money managers dressed up portfolios to present clients with the quarter's best performing stocks.
"When we were down this morning, I was worried about some bargain hunting and window dressing coming in; but it certainly did," Brian Finnerty, head of Nasdaq trading at C.E. Unterberg Towbin, told CNNfn's market coverage.
In the end, the first quarter finished the way day did; the Nasdaq rose 12.3 percent this year while the Dow fell 5 percent.
 "It was a tumultuous day and a tumultuous end to a tumultuous quarter," Francis Gannon, portfolio manager at SunAmerica Asset told CNN's Street Sweep.
Blame some of the Dow's losses this year on Procter & Gamble. The index's worst performer in 2000, off 48 percent, never recovered from profit warning earlier this month.
Intel, meanwhile, was the Dow's best-performing component over the last three months, jumping 66 percent, as investors bet demand for computer chips will soar.
The Nasdaq on Friday rose 114.94 points, or 2.6 percent, to 4,572.83. The gain helped the index recover some of more than 500-point-loss over the last four days and also pulled it out of the hole Wall Street deems a correction.
 The Dow, meanwhile, shed 58.33 points, or 0.50 percent to 10,921.92. And the broader S&P 500 rose 10.66 to 1,498.58.
Mores stocks rose than fell. Advancing issues on the New York Stock Exchange topped declining ones, 1,979 to 1,074, as trading volume topped 1.2 billion shares. Nasdaq winners beat losers 2,498 to 1,821, with more than 1.9 billion shares changed hands.
In other markets, Treasury securities rose. The dollar plunged against the yen but rose versus the euro.
Teflon Nasdaq
Friday's activity illustrates once again the Nasdaq's ability to rebound.
Still, the tech-heavy gauge fell 7.9 percent, or 392 points this week. The worst weekly performance on record came as investors dumped some of the year's best-performing shares amid concerns that their lofty growth prospects don't justify sky-high prices.
"There were a couple days this week where I thought there was some real panic among investors," C.E. Unterberg Towbin's Finnerty said.
But SunAmerica Asset's Gannon called the losses healthy. "Some air was let out of the bubble," he said.
Ahead, Gannon expects a strong fist-quarter earnings season to support stock prices.
Technology companies in the S&P 500 are expected to increase their profit by a cumulative 26.2 percent in the first quarter, outpacing the 18.4 percent gain for the overall index, according to First Call/Thomson Financial.
That may have helped on Friday.
Microsoft (MSFT: Research, Estimates) jumped 2-7/8 to 106-1/4, Intel (INTC: Research, Estimates) climbed 4-15/16 to 131-15/16, and Cisco Systems (CSCO: Research, Estimates) gained 3-11/16 to 77-5/16.
But business-to-business Internet companies took a beating. Commerce One (CMRC: Research, Estimates) plunged 24-1/16 to 149-1/4, Ariba (ARBA: Research, Estimates) tumbled 10-3/8 to 209-5/8, and I2 Technologies (ITWO: Research, Estimates) fell 6-7/8 to 122-1/8.
Prudential Securities downgrading the firms to "accumulate" from "strong buy." Prudential analyst Douglas Crook also lowered his 12-month target for share prices of Commerce One to $200 from $250 and I2 Technologies to $150 from $200, but kept Ariba's price target at $250.
Also taking a hit was health information Web site drkoop.com (KOOP: Research, Estimates), which plunged 2-9/16 to 3-11/16 after the firm's auditors said it faces mounting losses and a lack of cash.
And eBay (EBAY: Research, Estimates) fell 31-1/8 to 176, after the online auctioneer revealed in federal filings Thursday it is the subject of at least three local and federal investigations into its business practices.
Richard McCabe, chief market analyst at Merrill Lynch, told CNNfn's Market Coverage the Nasdaq's recent weakness may not be over. (380K WAV) (380K AIFF)
Dow falters
General Electric (GE: Research, Estimates) shed 3-9/16 to 155-3/16 and IBM (IBM: Research, Estimates) lost 4-11/16 to 118-1/16, weighing on the Dow, which fell 1.7 percent this week.
Still, a government report showing American consumers continued to spend strongly last month bodes well for stock investors, with analysts seeing the news as a sign of buoyant corporate profits to come.
Spending by U.S. consumers rose 1 percent in February while personal income edged up 0.4 percent, the government said Friday, both figures a shade above Wall Street forecasts.
Separately, factory orders fell 0.8 percent in February, a drop that was smaller than expected. And the Chicago Purchasing Management index rose to 57.4 in March, but the prices paid index surged to 74.2, suggesting inflation may be stronger than analysts had believed.
Click here for a look at CNN's hot stocks. 
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
