Nasdaq swings with Washington and ends higher
Reuters Story - September 16, 1998 17:23
NEW YORK, Sept 16 (Reuters) - The Nasdaq stock market swung higher on Wednesday, gyrated by a series of political
and economic pronouncements from Washington.
In testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Banking Committee, U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan
said there were no plans for a coordinated global effort to cut interest rates, a prospect some on Wall Street had hoped for.
After Greenspan spoke, stocks lost ground, but were buoyed when President Clinton said at a news conference with Czech
President Vaclav Havel that he intended to stay in office.
The Nasdaq Composite gained 11.81 points to 1689.92 after fluctuating in positive and negative ground. Advances beat
declines by a margin of 11-9 on volume of 720 million shares.
"Pretty quiet until 1pm, but after Greenspan said no to a rate cut the break came. Then Clinton said he's not leaving so that
helped lift it late," said Bill Meehan, chief market strategist at Cantor Fitzgerald.
Among some of the high-flyers on the Nasdaq were the Internet related stocks. Online bookseller, Amazon.com Inc. jumped
11-1/2 to 84-1/2; Yahoo! Inc. , the most visited site on the Internet, shot up 9 points to 93-3/8; Lycos Inc. rose 2-13/16 to
end at 26-3/8. |
