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To: HO-MEE who wrote (19338)	5/25/2000 6:07:00 PM
From: KLP	Respond to of 28311

Between GS and MSFT, and as of 5:03 PM ET.....this report of the last few hours today.... siliconinvestor.com Stocks Drop As Bearish Calls Scare Market By Kristin Roberts May 25 5:03pm ET NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks slid on Thursday as bearish comments by Wall Street analysts rattled an already nervous market, giving investors a reason to pull the plug on a technology rebound. Most sectors rolled back, dragging major stock indexes lower and completely reversing Wednesday's gains as sellers moved in near the end of the day. ``This just shows that this is a market clearly on the defensive,'' said Scott Bleier, chief investment strategist at Prime Charter Ltd. ``The path of least resistance is to the downside.'' The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 211.43 points, or 2.01 percent, to 10,323.92, erasing the 113-point gain logged a day ago. The blue-chip gauge was at its lowest close since April 14 and is now down 10 percent for the year. Both AT&T Corp. (T.N) and Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O) fell to 52-week lows as 24 of the 30 Dow stocks were beaten back. Microsoft's weakness helped reverse a technology rally and drag the Nasdaq composite (.IXIC) down 65.26 points, or 2.00 percent, to 3,205.35. The index has fallen more than 30 percent from its all-time high of 5,048.62 hit March 10, keeping it squarely in bear territory. Measures of the broader market also erased early gains. The Standard & Poor's 500 index (.SPX) fell 17.53 points, or 1.25 percent, to 1,381.52 while the Wilshire 5000 (.TMW), which gauges nearly the entire U.S. equity market, dropped 157.60 points, or 1.23 percent, to 12,646.64. Bond prices soared as cash came out of stocks. The 10-year U.S. Treasury note gained 20/32, pushing the yield down to 6.38 percent from Wednesday's close of 6.47 percent. The 30-year bond strengthened 1-5/32, with the yield down to 6.11 percent from Wednesday's 6.20 percent. ``Just like the market sucked everybody in when everybody was optimistic and stocks were going up, it is now doing its best to push everybody out with fear and pessimism,'' Bleier said. ``All of a sudden everybody went home, volume just completely stopped and the market swooned.'' Indeed, traders said the market simply lost momentum by late afternoon and fell victim to profit taking as players closed positions ahead of the long U.S. Memorial Day holiday weekend. ``We ran out of steam early in the day, as we started to exhaust the supply of buy orders that had started on Thursday afternoon,'' said Michael Palazzi, managing director of over-the-counter stock trading at CIBC World Markets in New York. The New York Stock Exchange saw 976.2 million shares change hands while the Nasdaq logged 1.57 billion shares. Breath was solidly negative with the number of declining shares far outpacing advancers. ``When you have that kind of technical damage, the key ingredient is time,'' said Louise Yamada, chief technical analyst at Salomon Smith Barney, noting that the early rally did not have the support of the technical indicators. ``You need time to repair it.'' Bearish brokerage house's comments on Goldman Sachs (GS.N) sparked a pullback in the financial sector that spread, traders said. Merrill Lynch said it thought Goldman Sachs (GS.N) executives were uncomfortable with Wall Street's consensus estimate on the company's quarterly earnings. Merrill said it has pegged Goldman at profits of $1.36 per share but that a more attainable range may be in the range of $1.30 to $1.35 per share area. Goldman dropped 6-7/8 to 73-1/8. Other brokerage names were pressured as well with J.P. Morgan off 3-5/8 at 129 and Merrill Lynch (MER.N) down 6 to 94-1/8. Microsoft dropped 4-1/16 to 61-1/2 after an influential industry analyst said the company could be worth less if it is broken up the by government. The comments hit a market already nervous about rising interest rates and stock valuations. Before the market opened, the Commerce Department reported that preliminary first-quarter Gross Domestic Product rose 5.4 percent while economists had expected the figure to be revised down to a 5.2 percent rise. Other economic reports gave a more mixed picture. Jobless claims for the week rose to 284,000, only slightly more than the 279,000 expected. But sales of existing U.S. homes fell 6.2 percent in April as the housing market showed signs of slowing in the face of higher interest rates. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan spoke at a National Association of Urban Bankers conference but declined to address the outlook for the economy or key interest rates. Wall Street will undoubtedly be tuned into data on personal income consumption and durable goods orders due Friday morning and leading into the holiday weekend.