Tech Stocks Lead Slide; Dollar Ends Day Down

Stocks gave up ground Wednesday after a series of record highs, while the dollar had a seesaw day, hitting highs against the Japanese yen and German mark before falling along with other U.S. markets.

The Dow Jones industrial average ended 35.41 points lower at 6,726.88, snapping a four-session streak of record closes. Bond prices fell slightly.

The Nasdaq composite index was off 12.83 points at 1,333.53, or nearly 1%, as technology stocks were especially hard hit, reversing their powerful gains Tuesday.

“Today was a mirror image of yesterday,” said Tom Carpenter, managing director at ASB Capital Management Inc. “Let’s face it, there have been phenomenal returns in stocks.”

Investors were especially disappointed over a sell-off in Intel, which skidded 5 1/8 to 142, one day after the world’s largest semiconductor maker reported fourth-quarter earnings that far exceeded Wall Street estimates.

While some of the selling in Intel reflected the same profit-taking impulse that afflicted the entire tech sector, some of the pressure came from concern that Intel’s results had finally set a standard that even the company itself could no longer surpass.

Interest rates were another source of pressure for stocks, as the bond market relinquished some of its recent gains in the absence of any significant economic news.

The price of the benchmark 30-year Treasury bond slipped, raising its yield to 6.79% from 6.76% at Tuesday’s close. The bond’s price moves in the opposite direction of its yield.

Declining issues barely outnumbered advancers on the New York Stock Exchange.

The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock list fell 1.66 points to 767.20; the NYSE composite index fell 0.03 points to 405.04; and the Russell 2000 list of smaller companies fell 0.33 points to 367.19. All four measures had closed at record highs on Tuesday.

In currency markets, the dollar hit a 46-month high against the yen of 117.47 before dropping to 116.82, off from Tuesday’s close of 116.93. It climbed to a 30-month high vs. the mark of 1.60 before slipping to 1.5877 marks, compared with 1.5930 at the end of trading Tuesday.

The dollar was boosted by a recent string of healthy U.S. economic data, the market’s desire to push the dollar above 1.60 marks and concern about Yeltsin’s health. The Russian president’s doctors ordered him to stay in the hospital all week.

Among Wednesday’s highlights:

* The weakest Dow industrials were IBM, down 2 25/64 to 164 5/8 after setting a nine-year high on Tuesday; Philip Morris, down 1 7/8 to 113 3/4; United Technologies, down 1 3/4 to 67; and General Electric, down 1 3/4 to 102 7/8.

* Intel’s warning particularly hurt computer-related stocks, including network software writer Peoplesoft, down 2 to 52, Cisco Systems, down 1 3/4 to 70 3/8, and modem maker U.S. Robotics, off 3 3/4 to 69 1/4.

* Not all computer industry shares fell. KLA Instruments fell 3/8 to 40 1/2 after announcing it would trade one of its shares for each of Tencor Instruments’, which jumped 5 3/8 to 35 7/8.

Advanced Micro Devices, a maker of computer chips, rose 1 1/8 to 33 5/8.

Oil prices rose on jitters about Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s health and a cold snap in the Northeast, the world’s largest heating oil market.

At the New York Mercantile Exchange, February crude oil closed 84 cents a barrel higher at $25.95.

Buoyed by those gains, February heating oil closed up 2.00 cents a gallon at 71.42 cents, and February unleaded gasoline ended 1.81 cents higher at 68.85 cents a gallon.

Overseas, Frankfurt’s DAX index rose 1.3% and London’s FTSE-100 fell 0.2%. Japanese financial markets were closed for a holiday.

Market Roundup, D6