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Posted at 12:55 p.m., Wednesday, July 11, 2001

Big blue chips rise amid mixed market

Hawai'i Stocks

Associated Press

NEW YORK — A fragmented stock market searched in vain for direction today. Big blue chips rose, but the broader market was mixed while investors awaited second-quarter earnings reports.

The market's scattered performance was also evident in profit warnings from Newell Rubbermaid and Emerson Electric that came alongside upbeat earnings news from Whirlpool.

"You can call this a yo-yo market," said Richard A. Dickson, a technical analyst at Hilliard Lyons in Louisville, Ky.

The Dow Jones industrial average closed up 65.38 at 10,241.02, according to preliminary calculations. Yesterday, the Dow dropped 123 points, its fifth triple-digit decline in a month.

Broader market measures were mixed today with the Nasdaq composite index rising 9.22 to 1,972.01, and the Standard & Poor's 500 index slipping 1.34 to 1,180.18.

Some of today's buying was attributable to bargain hunting after yesterday's selloff, said Dan Ascani, president of Global Market Strategists in Gainesville, Ga. But investors won't really commit to buying stocks until companies can say the outlook for future revenues and earnings is improving.

"It's going to take some catalyst like a good earnings report, or at least not a bad one," Ascani said.

Like the market, earnings news was mixed today.

Newell Rubbermaid fell $1.67 to $22.70 after the maker of household products cut its second-quarter earnings estimate to 29 cents a share from a previous estimate of 37 cents to 42 cents a share.

Electronic products maker Emerson Electric slid $8.48 to $52.93 after announcing it expects an 11 percent decline in profit for the latest quarter due to a sharp decline in its electronics and telecom business.

But Whirlpool rose $3.60 to $63.36 after raising its second-quarter earnings expectations.

Companies due to report earnings later today were likewise mixed, reflecting the market's nervousness. Yahoo! declined 80 cents to $17.03, while Motorola rose 17 cents to $15.67.

Investors, downtrodden after hearing more than 720 profit warnings for the second quarter, concentrated their buying on Wall Street's most stalwart companies. The thinking is that companies such as General Motors, IBM, Wal-Mart and Microsoft, all of which rose sharply today, are the least likely to have huge profit shortfalls, Dickson said.

GM rose $2.73 to $65.47, IBM advanced $1.89 to $103.85, and Wal-Mart climbed $1.35 to $48.85. All three are Dow stocks.

Microsoft, also a Dow component, rose $2.02 to $66.50. Microsoft announced today it will change its licensing agreements with computer manufacturers, in response to a recent court ruling that said the software maker's competitive practices broke the law.

"It's a very, very segmented market. You have a few stocks that are driving the indexes, so it is misleading," Dickson said.

Despite the rise in the Dow and Nasdaq, more stocks fell than advanced in the heavily traded session.

Declining issues outnumbered gainers more than 3 to 2 on the New York Stock Exchange. Volume came to 1.37 billion shares, compared with 1.24 billion yesterday.

The Russell 2000 index, the barometer of smaller company stocks, fell 2.31 to 475.83.

Stock fell overseas. Japan's Nikkei stock average finished the day down 2.4 percent. In Europe, Germany's DAX index slipped 0.3 percent, Britain's FT-SE 100 fell 1.4 percent, and France's CAC-40 lost 1.2 percent.