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Technology Stocks : Jimbo's Playhouse/CPQ -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Edward E. Shure who wrote (4355)	9/23/1999 6:37:00 PM
From: Night Writer	Respond to of 12663

Time for the news. Catch you tomorrow. NW Stocks Sink; Dow Ends Down 205.48 NEW YORK, Sep 23, 1999 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- Stocks plummeted Thursday as investors sold heavily amid continued worries about higher interest rates and the strength of the dollar. A Microsoft executive's warning that technology stocks are overvalued robbed the market of a big source of strength. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 205.48, or 2 percent, to close at 10,318.59. That brought the Dow's decline over the past three sessions to 505.31 points, or 4.5 percent. This week's selloff has left the Dow more than 1,000 points below its Aug. 25 closing record of 11,326.04. That's a drop of 8.9 percent -- just shy of the 10 percent drop analysts use to define a market correction. Broader stock indicators also fell steeply. The Standard & Poor's 500 fell 30.10 to 1,280.41, and the Nasdaq composite index fell 108.33 to 2, 749.83, its fourth-biggest decline ever. ''The market is under the weight of so many threats right now,'' said Scott Bleier, chief investment strategist at Prime Charter Ltd., citing rising interest rates and the tumbling dollar among the most pressing problems. ''It has deteriorated.'' Thursday's decline was broad-based, even as blue-chip stocks made some short-lived attempts to reverse their decline. In early afternoon, the Dow abandoned a brief rally that pushed it as much as 48 points above Wednesday's close. The quick erosion of the buying spree reinforced concerns about the market's condition. ''There's no new fundamental reason for the weak market, but there's a great deal of nervousness,'' said William Meehan, chief market analyst for Cantor Fitzgerald. Stock investors brushed aside any news that could have supported stocks. Bond yields plummeted, to 5.99 percent on the 30-year Treasury bond from 6.08 percent late Wednesday. The market also discounted a modest rise in the dollar against the Japanese yen. In late New York trading, the dollar was quoted at 103.95 yen, up from 103.93 late Wednesday. Still, the U.S. currency is lingering near its lowest levels against the yen since 1996. The dollar's weakness has contributed to a sharp decline in U.S. stocks this week. A lowerr dollar makes imports more expensive, setting the stage for inflation, and it also makes foreign investments more attractive. The market was unnerved by a Labor Department report that showed the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell unexpectedly last week to the lowest level in 25 years. The extremely low U.S. jobless rate has fostered fears that companies will have to increase wages and benefits in order to attract skilled workers. That, too, could set the stage for a revival of inflation, and for an increase in interest rates when the Federal Reserve meets Oct. 5. While the weaker dollar and interest rate fears have frozen many stocks in recent weeks, strength in leading technology companies has brought the Nasdaq to new records, and kept the broader market from falling into a swoon. But that strength evaporated Thursday after Microsoft president Steve Ballmer said at a conference that technology stocks -- including Microsoft -- are too highly priced. ''There is such an overvaluation of tech stocks that it's absurd,'' he said. ''I would put our company and I would put most companies in that category.'' Microsoft investors heeded his warning, sending its shares down 4~ to 91 3/16. Dell fell 3 1/16 to 43, and Yahoo! dropped 5 3/4 to 173 3/4. The Dow's technology components plummeted as well. IBM lost 3 3/16 to 122, and Hewlett Packard lost 4 5/16 to 94]. Semiconductor companies added to the weakness amid concerns that the earthquake that hit Taiwan earlier this week will hurt production and may force price increases. Intel plunged 5 5/16 to 77 1/2 and Texas Instruments fell 2 3/4 to 83~. Taiwan's semiconductor sector accounts for about 10 percent of the world's chipmaking capacity and about 80 percent of the ''motherboards'' used to run personal computers, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association. Declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 5-to-2 margin on the New York Stock Exchange, where composite volume totaled 1.06 billion shares, compared with 977.22 million in the previous session. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 7.32 to 420.21. With Thursday's decline, both the Dow and the S&P 500 tumbled below so-called technical support levels. Traders said the Dow's drop below 10,500 and the S&P's drop below 1,300 prompted additional selling, due partially to computer-driven trading and partially to a heightened sense of the market's troubles. Overseas, Japan's stock market was closed for a national holiday. European indexes rose after the European Central Bank left interest rates unchanged. Germany's DAX index gained 1.2 percent, Britain's FT-SE 100 rose 0.9 percent, and France's CAC-40 rose 0.7 percent. Copyright 1999 Associated Press, All rights reserved. -0- By EILEEN GLANTON

To: Edward E. Shure who wrote (4355)	9/24/1999 10:12:00 AM
From: Night Writer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12663

Ed, We have Irish morning tea being served now. Limit sell order in of TLAB. The $60 high is a bad print. A morning market projection for what it's worth. NW oing. Losers on the New York Stock Exchange hold a three-to-two lead over gainers. The Nasdaq Composite Index is down 27 points and the S&P 500 Index is down four points. Analysts expected stocks to continue their slide which began late in yesterday's session. They noted that the Dow and S&P 500 fell through some key supports levels during yesterday's selloff. They also expected that investors would keep selling their best-performing issues. Copyright 1999 Associated Press, All rights reserved.