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Dow bounces off lows
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November 24, 1998: 1:46 p.m. ET
Index lurches off early dip in follow-up to Monday's run into record terrain
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - A modest pullback from Monday's record gains kept U.S. stocks in the shallow end of negative territory in afternoon trading Tuesday.
Shortly before 1:30 p.m., the Dow Jones industrial average was 22.14 points lower at 9,352.13. On the New York Stock Exchange, trading volume reached 476 million shares with declines edging ahead of advances 1,596 to 1,354.
The Nasdaq Composite fell 5.49 to 1,982.91 and the S&P 500 index slipped 0.26 to 1,187.95. (Click here for a look at today's CNNfn market movers)
The bond market was mixed, with the benchmark 30-year Treasury bond rising 19/32 in price for a yield of 5.22 percent, but with short-term Treasurys trading lower.
The dollar maintained strength against the German mark and rose against the Japanese yen.
The cooling of the merged
In the stock market, exhausted after Monday's torrid rally, investors took time to take profits and readjust their positions before taking time off for the Thanksgiving holiday later in the week.
News of the merger of Netscape (NSCP) and America Online (AOL), now confirmed, once again topped most trading agendas. After rising sharply Monday, shares of Netscape fell 1-1/8 to 40-13/16. AOL, however, gained 4 to 93-1/4 and Sun Microsystems (SUNW), also involved in the deal, advanced 3-3/4 to 75-1/16.
Separately, Netscape reported fourth-quarter earnings that were in line with market expectations.
In the day's other significant deal, the stock of Union Camp (UCC) soared 17-15/16, or nearly 36 percent, to 66-1/4, on news the company is being acquired by Dow component International Paper (IP) in a $6.6 billion stock swap. Shares of IP inched up 1-1/16 to 44-3/4.
And shares of retailer JCPenney (JCP) eased 2-3/16 to 52-3/4 after the company announced it was buying drug store chain Genovese (GDX.A) in a $492 million deal. Genovese shares fell 13/16 to 29-3/16.
In other news, the stock of Heller Financial (HF) gained 3/4 to 27-1/2 following news the company is cutting 15 percent of its workforce and taking a fourth-quarter charge whose size is yet to be determined.
Finally, airline stocks bucked the market's daily trend, trading higher despite several downgrades by BT Alex. Brown. Shares of American Airlines parent AMR (AMR) gained 2-3/8 to 67-3/16, Delta Air Lines (DAL) rose 2-7/8 to 55-3/4 and United Airlines parent UAL (UAL) advanced 1-7/8 to 65-3/8, driving the Dow transport index up 57.86 points, or 1.08 percent, to 3071.71. 
-- by staff writer Malina Poshtova Zang
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