U.S. Stocks At Lows; Support Levels Fail
Sep 23 3:52pm ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street stocks turned sharply lower in late afternoon Thursday, with selling pressure pushing major indexes through key support levels.
The Dow Jones industrial average was down 148 points to 10,375, with losses quickly mounting after the Standard & Poor's 500 index fell convincingly below 1,300, a level that had served as a psychological floor for the market in recent session.
The S&P 500 was down 21 points or 1.6 percent at 1,290.
``It looks like we broke some key areas and that's triggered even more selling,' said Guy Truicko, portfolio manager at Unity Management in Garden City.
Contributing to the overall bearish tone was renewed weakness in the dollar while a firmer tone in the bond market did little to offset the selling pressure.
Troubling to some analysts was a sharp slide in technology stocks, which dragged the Nasdaq Composite down 78 points or 2.7 percent to 2,780.
The decline came despite some strong initial public offerings and a merger between two prominent Internet service providers. TheStreet.com's Internet index was down 27 points, or 4.2 percent at 623.
Internet service providers Earthlink Network Inc. and MindSpring Enterprises Inc. said they would merge, creating a company with $3 billion market capitalization. Earthlink shares were down 7/16 to 43-1/6, reversing early gains, and MindSpring was down 5-1/16 at 27-13/16.
eGain Communications Corp., which supplies customer service infrastructure for e-commerce companies, saw its stock more than double to 25 after debuting at $12.
Other companies in the news included Microsoft Inc., which said it would spin off its Web travel service, Expedia, in an initial public offering. Microsoft stock was down 3-13/16 at 92-1/4 after the announcement.
``Technology has been one of the pillars of this market,' Truicko said. ``If that group turns, we could have a lot more downside in the indexes.'
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