|
Pre-holiday quiet for Dow
|
 |
November 25, 1998: 10:12 a.m. ET
Stocks linger around unchanged levels as investors break for Thanksgiving
|
NEW YORK (CNNfn) - U.S. stocks barely budged in early trading Wednesday, with the majority of market participants apparently choosing to leave Wall Street to its own devices while getting ready for the Thanksgiving holiday Thursday.
At around 10 a.m. the Dow Jones industrial average was 5.15 points lower at 9,296.00. Advances led declines 1,155 to 1,062 as 69 million shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange.
The Nasdaq Composite rose 6.08 to 1,971.96 and the S&P 500 index traded 0.23 higher at 1,183.22.
The bond market traded modestly higher, getting little inspiration from the day's heavy dose of economic data. The benchmark 30-year Treasury bond rose 4/32 of a point in price, for a yield of 5.20 percent.
The dollar was mixed, rising slightly against the Japanese yen, but easing against the German mark.
U.S. financial markets will be closed Thursday for the holiday.
Holiday mood slows down stocks
The newsmakers in the stock market were few and far between on a day in which investors seemed ready to slow down and leave early for Thanksgiving.
But the holiday spirit did not prevent investors from pushing the stock of Sabratek (SBTK), a maker of alternative-site health care products and devices, down 9, or nearly 39 percent, to 14-1/4. The reason for the tumble lay in the company's announcement that it had discontinued its Rocap line of prepackaged and pre-filled flush syringes and, as a result, its fourth-quarter performance would suffer.
Elsewhere, shares of Intuit (INTU) gained 1-3/4 to 61-5/8 after the company reported a smaller-than-expected fiscal-first-quarter operating loss.
And the stock of Novell (NOVL) climbed 1 to 18-3/8 after that company's fourth-quarter results beat market predictions. 
-- by staff writer Malina Poshtova Zang
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
