Wall Street’s attempt at a rally stalled Tuesday, as the blue-chip Dow industrial average, up 74 points at one point, ended the day clinging to a small gain, while broader indexes fell.
The Dow added 14.41 points, or 0.1 percent, to 10,253.17, after surrendering much of its earlier gains in the session’s final 90 minutes.
As modest as that uptick was, however, the Dow nonetheless outperformed other stock market barometers.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index declined 17.83, or 0.9 percent, to 2061.09, and the Standard & Poor’s 500 index dipped 2.46, or 0.2 percent, to 1184.87.
The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies sagged 7.89, or 1.2 percent, to close at 630.08.
The Dow traded as high as 10,312 Tuesday afternoon, but then gave up much of its gain. Dow component Exxon Mobil rose 1.5 percent, to $59.40, after crude oil for November delivery jumped a hefty $1.73, to $63.53 a barrel, on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Another Dow stock, General Motors, rebounded 3.7 percent, to $26.42, after billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian received regulatory clearance to boost his current 9.5 percent GM stake to 9.9 percent.
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GM shares lost 10 percent Monday after key supplier Delphi filed for bankruptcy protection over the weekend, exposing the automaker (and Delphi’s onetime corporate parent) to billions of dollars in potential liability.
Shares of another Dow member, International Business Machines, also helped keep the index in positive territory, increasing 2.4 percent, to $83.19, after a brokerage raised its rating on the stock.
But other blue chips, including economy-sensitive 3M and Boeing, headed lower Tuesday.
In midafternoon, the Federal Reserve released the minutes from its meeting last month, at which officials decided to raise short-term interest rates for the 11th time since June 2004. Investors had been anxious to learn details of the meeting, but as Nomura economist David Resler noted, the minutes “revealed little that was not obvious in the policy statement issued immediately after the Sept. 20 rate hike.”
The gloomy-as-expected tenor of the Fed’s meeting did nothing to relieve Wall Street’s growing concerns that the central bank’s interest rate tightening cycle is going to extend well into next year.
But Treasury securities, which typically move in the opposite direction from stocks, rose 8/32, to yield 4.39 percent. The dollar strengthened against the euro but slipped relative to the Japanese yen.
Although equity markets were flat Tuesday, some individual stocks saw big swings:
– RealNetworks shares jumped $1.96, or 34 percent, to close at a two-year high of $7.70, after the maker of RealPlayer software agreed to drop its antitrust litigation against Microsoft, in exchange for a total of $761 million in cash and other considerations. Microsoft shares eased 5 cents, to $24.41.
– Shares of derivatives broker Refco, which plunged 45 percent Monday after the company disclosed financial irregularities involving its top official, were declared unavailable for trading during much of Tuesday’s session. But when the stock finally resumed trading in the afternoon, the scandal-related sell-off resumed as well, and Refco shares dropped 11 percent, to $13.85.
– California-based sporting goods-maker K2’s shares tumbled 14 percent, to $9.14, after the company, citing unexpected weakness in its sales of paintball equipment, reduced its 2005 earnings estimate.
In local stocks: Telephone & Data Systems dropped $1.93, or 5 percent, to $36.68, though there was no obvious trigger for the decline in the telecom service provider’s shares. Shares of U.S. Cellular, in which TDS holds a controlling stake, declined $1.40, or 2.7 percent, to $51.04.
– Nuveen Investments slipped 75 cents, or 1.9 percent, to $38.59, after a Keefe Bruyette analyst downgraded the Chicago-based asset manager to “market perform” from “buy.” Nuveen shares are nonetheless about 30 percent higher than they were 12 months ago.
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