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Earnings dominate Wall St.
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July 9, 1998: 11:36 a.m. ET
Blue chips sag after DuPont warning, Web stocks soar on strong Yahoo! profit
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - The game on Wall Street was all about earnings Thursday. Investors rushed to reward Internet shares after industry leader Yahoo! posted surprisingly strong results, and battered blue chips after Dow member DuPont warned its profit would be less than stellar.
Shortly before 11:30 a.m. the Dow Jones industrial average was 53.81 points lower at 9,121.16. Declines outnumbered advances 1,492 to 1,080 as trading volume on the New York Stock Exchange hit 228 million shares.
The Nasdaq Composite, which includes most Internet-related stocks, rose 4.77 to 1,940.16, inching its way into record territory. The broad S&P 500 index slipped 2.52 to 1,163.85. (Click here for a look at today's hot stocks.)
The bond market was higher, once again supported by strength in the dollar. The benchmark 30-year Treasury bond gained 5/32 of a point in price for a yield of 5.62 percent.
The dollar posted gains against the Japanese yen and the German mark as investors continued to keep a wary eye on Tokyo's and Moscow's simmering financial troubles.
The Internet -- the way of the future?
In stocks, highly speculative Internet shares attracted volumes of buying after search engine leader Yahoo! (YHOO) surprised Wall Street Wednesday with much better-than-expected second-quarter earnings and announced a 2-for-1 stock split.
Yahoo!'s shares jumped 13-13/32 to 200 in very heavy trading. Other Internet stocks followed suit. Among Yahoo! competitors, Excite (XCIT) rose 3-1/8 to 94-1/2, Infoseek (SEEK) gained 9/16 to 35-1/16 and Lycos (LCOS) climbed 3-3/4 to 81-1/4. Netscape (NSCP), originally a browser maker and currently also a Web portal, rose 1-5/16 to 38-3/8.
Online book retailer Amazon.com (AMZN) gained 5-3/4 to 112-7/8. On the Big Board, America Online (AOL), the world's premiere online service provider, climbed 1-15/16 to 112-11/16. Gateway (GTW), a made-to-order computer manufacturer and lately Internet service provider, topped the list of NYSE net gainers, rising 4-1/4 to 64.
Gains in Internet stocks, however, did little to inspire the Dow industrials, after a blue chip club member warned of sharply lower earnings. Chemical giant and Dow component DuPont (DD) slumped 6-1/8 to 71 after the company said soft energy prices and a prolonged strike at General Motors (GM) would result in second-quarter earnings 10 to 15 percent below the 99 cents a share the company earned a year earlier.
And shares of retailer J.C. Penney (JCP) tumbled 4-11/16 to 66-3/4 after the company predicted lower-than-expected second-quarter earnings.
Also among the day's losers, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) shed 2-11/16, or almost 15 percent, to 15-7/16 after reporting sharply lower-than-expected results late Wednesday. AMD blamed slow worldwide demand for computer chips and price slashing by industry leader Intel (INTC) for its woes. Intel's shares inched up 3/4 to 79-1/16.
But other major technology issues posted gains, with Microsoft (MSFT) trading 1-5/8 higher at 111-1/2, Dell (DELL) rising 4-3/8 to 100-3/4 and Dow component IBM (IBM) climbing 2-5/8 to 117-5/8. 
-- by staff writer Malina Poshtova Zang
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