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Bulls struggle uphill
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March 18, 1999: 11:47 a.m. ET
Banks, oil and transports fight to regain high ground, but computers pull lower
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - U.S. stocks spun their wheels in Thursday morning trading, wrestling with anxiety at every turn while investors looked ruefully at the 10,000-point summit blue chips reached earlier in the week.
Shortly before 11:30 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones industrial average had gained a hard-won 7.77 points to 9,887.18. Trading volume on the New York Stock Exchange was a rambunctious 322 million shares, while advancers narrowly outpaced decliners by a margin of 1,356 to 1,2074.
The Nasdaq Composite climbed 6.41 to 2,435.38 and the broader S&P 500 index added 5 points to 1,302.82.
Analysts said unsurprising consumer price figures had dashed Wall Street's early hopes for outside encouragement, forcing it to wrestle almost entirely with its own technical factors.
"It was a little overbought," noted Robert Robbins, market strategist at Robinson-Humphrey. "It's pausing . . . it's probably going to make another run at 10,000 in the next couple of days."
While uninspiring for Wall Street, the morning's data soothed bond traders with promises of dormant inflation, sending the price of the benchmark 30-year Treasury bond up 7/32 of a point and the yield down to 5.48 percent.
The dollar continued to fight hard against other global currencies, giving up ground against the yen but driving the euro back down to Wednesday's levels.
Oil and transports mix?
Investors found both transportation companies and big oil on the winning side, a relatively rare occurrence as rising petroleum prices usually give oil stocks a boost but depress the transports.
Nonetheless, Exxon (XON) climbed 11/16 to 75-1/16 in response to a 47-cent leap in New York crude oil prices, while exuberant earnings news from Federal Express parent FDX (FDX) drove that stock up 4-1/16 to 97 and the broader Dow transports index up 59.30 points, nearly 1.8 percent.
Airline stocks also fed into the transport sector's advance, led by a triumphant performance from American Airlines holding company AMR (AMR), which climbed 3-9/16 to 61-1/16. Although AMR late Wednesday confirmed speculation that first-quarter profits will fall short, analysts said the market had already priced the probable losses into the stock price.
Banks were a third reservoir of upward momentum, surging dramatically in response to the bond market's gains and some bargain-hunting after the sector's recent retreat.
Among the blue chip bankers, American Express (AXP) climbed 3-1/2 to 124-7/16 and J.P. Morgan (JPM) leapt 2-3/16 to 122-11/16. Citigroup (C) surged 1-1/2 to 64-1/4.
Chase Manhattan (CMB) was up 1-1/8 to 83-1/2 on buyout speculation. The Wall Street Journal had reported that the bank's CEO is willing to offer concessions in a bid to attract merger partners.
More bad news for PC makers
Dulling the broader market's enthusiasm, the computer sector chimed in with a gloomy note after fresh negative comments shook fragile confidence in the industry's growth outlook.
This time, Compaq (CPQ) was the company leading the retreat. Influential Piper Jaffray computer analyst Ashok Kumar singled Compaq out, saying that overall industry weakness would cause the company's first-quarter revenue and profits to fall short of Wall Street expectations.
Compaq shares fell 1-1/8 to 32-1/8 in response, while Dell (DELL), which sparked a broader sell-off last month amid similarly bearish comments from Kumar, shed 13/16 to 42-1/8. The blue-chip computer makers were not immune, with IBM (IBM) falling 2-13/16 to 175-1/4 and Hewlett Packard (HWP) sliding 2-1/16 to 71-1/8.
However, this time the selling did not extend beyond the core computer industry. Among other tech bellwethers, Microsoft (MSFT) climbed 1-3/8 to 168-1/2 and Intel (INTC) surged 1-1/4 to 121-13/16.
In the Internet sector, venture-capital firm CMGI (CMGI) soared 15-3/8 to 190-3/4 on reports that it will fight the impending merger of Web portal Lycos (LCOS), in which it is a major shareholder, with USA Networks (USAI). Lycos tumbled 5-3/16 to 96-9/16, while USA Networks inched up 3/8 to 37-7/8.
Barnes & Noble (BKS) flew 4-1/2 to 33-3/8 after setting an initial stock offering for its Internet bookstore barnesandnoble.com. Online archrival Amazon.com (AMZN) welcomed the news, climbing 6-7/8 to 137-7/8. 
-- by staff writer Robert Scott Martin
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